Chapter 268: Proprietress of Paradise Hot Springs
I pushed aside the curtain, expecting to see a cosy interior and have a rush of sulphur stream into my nose since this was a natural hot spring. But instead, I was greeted by the scene of a bunch of women gathering around the rather wide and spacious lobby, which was built entirely out of wood.
They all wore traditional Japanese yukatas, showing how much of Earth\'s culture this world possessed, almost as if it were modelled after it, and they were currently circling around the centre of the lobby while whispering and murmuring to one another with uneasy looks on their faces, almost as if a fight had broken out in the middle of the lobby.
I didn\'t expect a violent fight to start in such a peaceful and relaxing place, and I wondered if I should back away and come back another day.
But seeing as to how the crowd mostly consisted of middle-aged and elder women that all looked so nervous and scared at the moment, I sighed and went forward to see what the problem was since my conscious couldn\'t leave a bunch of pretty ladies alone like this, especially since I knew some of the women in the crowd.
"Oh, Kafka!...You\'re here too!" A rather plump middle-aged lady who was in the crowd called out to me when she noticed me approaching, and she looked a bit relieved to see me, as if my arrival brought her great ease in this high tension situation.
"Mrs Keller! It\'s lovely meeting with you as well on this lovely night, especially while you\'re wearing these traditional clothes! They simply look gorgeous on you!" I said in an enthusiastic manner towards the sweet lady in front of me, which made her blush shyly.
I had already met Mrs Keller in the sweet shop she owned a few days ago, and after a little talk with her, we became close acquaintances, who I always had a chat with whenever I visited her shop.
"Oh, you and your wily mouth!~ You just can\'t stop praising every lady you see, can you?~" Mrs Keller covered her mouth and giggled.
"I\'m simply honest with my thoughts, ma\'am. There\'s nothing else to it."
I sincerely said, which made a couple of other eyes peek over to see who was saying such flattering words, some even who I already knew, just like how I knew Mrs Keller. They too seemed to want to greet me but couldn\'t because of whatever was going on in front.
"If you have a moment, ma\'am, could you tell me what exactly is going on here?" I asked Mrs Keller who was also looking towards the crowd, like she was hoping the predicament didn\'t get out of hand. "I just got here, so I have no clue as to what\'s going on."
"Oh, it\'s quite an unfortunate event, you see, for us who just wanted to soak in the hot springs without any worry..." Mrs Keller said as she walked towards the crowd to see if there were any developments in the situation.
"I also just got here, but apparently a bunch of college boys who wanted to visit the hot spring after hearing about it tried to enter the girls area of the building, where all the ladies usually change."
"Luckily, Nina, the owner of this hot spring, whose family has been running this place for years, saw them trying to go in and quickly kicked them out by beating them with a broom in one hand and a mop in another." Mrs Keller gave a sigh of relief, like she thought Nina, the owner of this little joint, to be their saviour.
"She kicked out a bunch of men using a mop and broom?...She\'s one feisty lady, isn\'t she?" I said with a look of intrigue on my face, as it looked to be going in a certain direction that the Gods were waiting for.
"Oh, she is! She is known around these parts to be one tough lady that will beat up anyone who tries to cause a problem here, and is the main reason ladies like us feel safe to soak in this hot spring that lays us bare, when we\'re always surrounded by disgusting men and the vile looks they gaze upon us."
Mrs Keller said with a look of disdain in her eyes, and I couldn\'t agree with her even more since I\'ve personally seen how the men in the world looked at the women here, which was nothing less than vile and creepy behaviour.
Luckily, as eager as they were to treat women like they were tools for their desire, they were also pathetic cowards who didn\'t dare make their move on any of them because of their low self-esteem and simply gazed at them from afar most of the time while making horrible comments about them amongst themselves.
"Oh, and I\'m not referring to you when I say this, Kafka!" Mrs Keller quickly cleared things up so that I didn\'t misunderstand. "You\'re one of the rare few boys out there who actually know how to treat a lady."
"You also seem like someone who would appreciate Nina\'s bravery, where she doesn\'t hesitate to fight against men if they are in the wrong, like how she beat up the boys who tried to enter until their entire bodies were covered in bruise marks." Mrs Keller smiled like she was considering me one of her own.
"Wait. She didn\'t just push them out, but actually beat them until they had welts all over their body?...Damn, that\'s actually something that I have to appreciate, since you don\'t see a single girl taking on a bunch of guys in a fight and winning that often." I said while nodding my head in wonder, not expecting the owner to be so brutal.
I then asked when I heard a particular noise in the middle of the crowd, "...Does that mean the weird murmuring I\'ve been hearing for a while now are the groans of pain from the guys that were beat up?"
"Yep...Nina had beaten them up until they were black and blue all over and dragged them right into the middle of the lobby so that she could deal with them in plain sight." Mrs Keller said with a prideful expression on her rotund face, as if she were happy that justice was served.
"Right now she\'s gone back inside the dressing room to see if all the girls in there are fine, and she\'ll be back soon to properly deal with those perverts."
"Can I go and see the shape of those boys that have been dealt with by the mighty hands of Mrs Nina?" I asked, wanting to see just how badly she fucked them up, to the extent that I could hear them moaning out in pain like their legs were broken ever since I entered the building.
"Of course!...Nina dragged them to the middle lobby so that they could be scrutinised by us ladies and be ashamed of their actions, so it would be a loss if you didn\'t take a look." Mrs Keller patted my shoulders and brought me along to take a look at the sorry sight.
She then joked with me as she looked up at me and said, "And don\'t be scared with how badly she\'s beaten them up since even though she may have a tough exterior that she\'s built up to run this business peacefully and protect us women, she\'s actually a sweetheart who\'s kind to everyone and treats all her guests to her utmost ability because of the pride she has in her work and in this little spot of hers."
"...Well, that is unless you start peaking at the girls bathing, so I suggest you not do anything of such Kafka unless you want to be made an example of by our guardian angel, Nina."
I gave an awkward smile and nodded my head as Mrs Keller parted the crowd, while at the same time quickly introducing me to the ladies who were looking at me with interest since they were surprised that she was talking so freely to a man they had never seen before.
I gave a quick greeting to them as well and also to the ladies that I had already met this past week with a bright smile on my face, which made them even more interested in me and looked like they wanted to talk to me a bit more. But unfortunately for them, Mrs Keller pulled me up front before they could ask me anything, and here I saw the sight that Mrs Keller was trying to describe to me.
And just like she had mentioned, Mrs Nina seemed to have some skill with the art of the mop and broom, as she had beaten the three colleges in front of me to a pulp, to the extent that they couldn\'t even get up and were crying for their mother while rolling around the floor in misery.
I almost felt pity for them after seeing the state they were in since their bodies were covered in bruises all over, with some of the wounds even bleeding, and their yukatas were also torn all over like they had just come back after wrestling with a tiger.
But knowing what they did, rather than pity, I wanted to put them out of their misery by breaking the broom in half and stabbing it through their necks.
And just as I was wondering what sort of fierce woman could\'ve torn open these boys until they looked like they had just survived a war and what she might look like, as I don\'t expect her to look all petite and cute after seeing how capable she is, I got a message from the Gods showing that they were just as interested as I was as well.
Ding~
[The Gods are interested in the Proprietress of Paradise Hot Springs, Nina Valeria]