In a World Where Chastity is Reversed, I Ended Up Working as a Hot Spring Attendant

Chapter 165: Extra – Royal Family (Misago’s Perspective)

“Avah…”

I let out a strange sound as I looked at the reservation email list.

From: Sekirei
Subject: Upcoming Stay – Request for a One-Week Secret Visit

The content itself was nothing unusual, but the sender’s name was the problem.

“What’s wrong, Misago? You made a weird noise.”

My mother, Tsumugi, who was writing in the ledger nearby, peeked at my screen.

“Oh, it’s from Sekirei-chan? Even before the official announcement, she’s got sharp ears.”

She took it lightly.

Click, click.

She casually took control and opened the email.

“We’ve heard about that man on our side too. Isn’t it cruel not to send us any updates? We should get along better! So, let me have a little share too, okay? I’ll be bringing my daughter, Kiseki, with me for this secret visit, so please take care of us.” (Summarized version.)

After reading it, I slumped down. The email itself had an oddly old-fashioned writing style.

Those two were a bit hard to deal with. They were half-sisters, so they were technically relatives, but I didn’t interact with them much.

“What should we do about their room? All the standard guest rooms are full.”

“We just have to open the special suite, so it’s fine.”

“I see…”

“Don’t go all in at once and use up all your trump cards.”

“You have a point…”

I couldn’t argue back.

That phrase was originally an investment saying, but the fact that she used it so naturally made her seem pretty smart.

And so, it was inevitable that our supposedly secretive but overly obvious relatives would increase.

~Postscript

Daughter: Kiseki (21) – Bird image: Grey Wagtail. Among the direct group, she’s one of the youngest, along with Misago and Suzume.

Mother: Sekirei (38) – Bird image: White Wagtail.

Title: Royal Family.

Historically, in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, the wagtail was the bird that taught Izanami and Izanagi the secrets of procreation.

Publicly, they hold no real power and exist as symbolic figures. In reality, they serve as the leaders of the shrine maidens and priests who control the nation from behind the scenes.

They are connected to the ones who brought Hisui here, but that was in a past generation. They simply created a mechanism where, when enough energy from the land veins, dragon veins, and spirit veins accumulated randomly, the boundary gate would sometimes open.

In this world, places where many people have died throughout history tend to have special natural stones, hot springs, and other unique geological features—generally referred to as geo-spots.

When something gets dragged in, the excess energy is charged into the one pulling it in due to the law of energy conservation. Additionally, since the original body dies and the spirit slightly reconstructs itself, they might become a bit younger. In Hisui’s case, this could explain why she was somewhat mentally immature.

Old wounds remain because they have seeped into the soul—they don’t heal.

Hisui’s advantageous traits are not cheats or anything like that; they are purely natural qualities she was born with. It’s not fraud—it’s just luck.

The royal family consists of a rare few women without Wolbachia.

Sekirei is the same age as Tsumugi and gets along well with her.

She looks young and beautiful, but when standing next to Tsumugi, she is slightly outmatched. These women put serious effort into maintaining their youthful appearance.

Since they occasionally stay here, Misago is familiar with them, but as a younger generation member, she finds their distance hard to grasp.

She simply considers them highly esteemed relatives. Meanwhile, Yata, Tsumugi, and Toki treat them casually—because they are the kind of big shots who don’t get hung up on such things.

Thanks to Kohaku’s efforts, the half-sibling series remains closely related, with most of them within the second-degree kinship range. The blood ties are ridiculously strong. Furthermore, if Kohaku’s legal wife status made her a parent, then even through adoption, that would legally make them first-degree relatives—extremely close under the law.

Above them, there’s Tsurugi, who is of the same generation as Toki. She appears as an elegant and lively old lady with mostly white hair with some black.

When standing next to Toki, it becomes obvious how monstrous those with Wolbachia-adapted traits really are.

Due to their paternal lineage, Misago and the others are relatives, but they are not treated as nobility or royalty. Yata hates being tied down by power and authority.

That being said, he loves binding people emotionally, which is a contradiction in itself.

Among the extended family, this royal group is the most dangerous bunch.

—

Chapter 166: Suzume’s First Day – Getting to Know Each Other & Checking the Situation

Clatter, clatter, clatter, clatter…

Tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble…

In my arms, Suzume was still trembling slightly.

(This looks more serious than I expected…)

I was at a loss for words and could only stay silent in thought.

For context, before this, we all took a bath together, making sure to thoroughly relax and massage her. After that, we decided it was time to begin.

Everyone left us alone with warm smiles, and as soon as we were alone in the room, Suzume turned pale and started trembling like crazy, almost hyperventilating. I held her hand and asked, “Are you cold?”

Her fingers were so tense that her nails dug into her own palms, turning her fingertips completely white. I gently loosened them and let her hold my hand to prevent her from hurting herself.

Even after that, she was still trembling, so I realized this wasn’t just about being cold. To avoid making her feel pressured, I simply hugged her from behind and pulled us both under the covers.

She seems more afraid of me than I thought…

“Could it be that you don’t like me?”

She shook her head.

It wasn’t a verbal answer, just a silent shake.

“Are you scared of me?”

…Another shake.

There was a brief pause, but it seemed like a denial.

Phew… Hah…

“…I’m just scared of men in general.”

Finally, she responded with words.

“So, you dislike them as a species?”

She nodded.

“But personally?”

“Hisuisei-san himself isn’t scary.”

“That’s a relief.”

For now, I’ll take that as a good sign.

“So, what happened to make you this scared?”

…Sigh.

She let out a deep breath and turned to face me.

Her gaze met mine—it was a determined, resolved look. I decided to take it seriously and looked back at her with the same level of seriousness.

“When I was a baby, back when I was still just a newborn, I was in the nursery with Hachikuma and Misago. A man picked me up, and he had a cigarette in his mouth. A chunk of ash fell… and, well, it just so happened to land directly into my open eye.”

“…Damn.”

“I cried like crazy. It wasn’t just a burn—it was like my eye got fried. It hurt like hell.”

“What kind of guy was he? I mean, who does that?”

That’s some real scumbag behavior. Smoking around a baby? No decent person would do that.

“He was apparently sent by the country as a candidate for my future husband after Kohaku-grandfather passed away.”

“Wait, that’s a thing?”

A government-arranged marriage instead of a private matchmaking service? That’s giving off dystopian vibes.

“The guy didn’t even realize what he did. He just picked me up, and I started crying. Then he got all pissed off, called me annoying, and was about to throw me. That’s when Tsumugi-mom stepped in to save me. The dude snapped for no reason, tried to punch her, and Hachikuma got in the way to stop him. But Hachikuma was still little back then—still had baby teeth—and the guy kicked him so hard that his front tooth fell out. And this dude had the audacity to scream about how it wasn’t his fault, saying it was my fault for crying.”

“What happened to your eye?”

“Did I get away unscathed? Barely? No, not really.”

She pulled down her lower eyelid and showed me.

“…Hmm?”

It was hard to see in the dim light from the bedside lamp.

“Is it hard to tell?”

She sat up, turned on the room’s light, and pulled both her eyelids down for me to see.

Now that I looked closely, there was a slight difference in eye color, and her pupils weren’t the same size.

“They’re slightly different sizes?”

“Yeah. Technically, I can still see, so it’s ‘fine,’ but the burn damaged my vision. I had to get a special intraocular lens to correct it. It was pretty expensive, you know?”

She looked a bit proud. At least the lens itself didn’t seem to bother her.

“That’s… a pretty questionable definition of ‘fine’…”

“Well, I mean, I survived, so in that sense, I’m ‘fine.’ But thanks to that, my distrust and fear of men only grew stronger.”

She let out a weak chuckle.

“You know, like an onion—you can peel away the outer layers, but the core still stays.”

I couldn’t find the right words to respond. That whole experience was traumatic enough to make anyone wary of men.

Technically, if you peel an onion, the core stays, but if you go by its growth process, it’s the other way around. Not that I was about to point that out—it’d be an unnecessary remark.

“A bit of a brag, but I actually have a pretty good memory. I remember things from when I was a baby, even from when I was zero years old. People say human memory works best when we forget things just enough to function smoothly, and I’m proof of that. Hachikuma, who was coughing up blood that day, has completely moved on. Misago was still so young at the time, barely able to open her eyes, and she just slept through it all. Now she’s out here making out with you like crazy.”

“…Yeah, I got plenty of that, alright…”

She pouted slightly as she piled on the recent incidents. The way she said it made me feel a bit awkward, but I just nodded.

“Well, congratulations! My older and younger sisters have been well taken care of by you! Thank you very much!”

She blushed and raised her voice, looking a little reluctant but also carrying the weight of being stuck between two siblings.

“And I’m grateful as well.”

I turned to face her properly, held her hands with both of mine, and bowed deeply.

“Are you, though?”

She tilted her head slightly.

“If we’re talking about trade value, what we got from you is actually way more valuable.”

She was probably referring to the worth of my semen and how I attract customers.

“As the saying goes, in the code of travelers, even a single night’s shelter and meal should be repaid with a life. It’s a cheap price to pay.”

I replied with a lighthearted tone.