While they were eating Anton thought of the coins that he had in his inventory. He remembered the purses that came from the vampire, and he only gave the purse containing one hundred silver coins to his father. The one with the one hundred gold coins was still in his private stash.
“Father, will you need the other purse from that monster we killed?”
“No. I still have the purse of gold coins from the bandits and together with the silver coins from that monster and the gold coins that your mother and I have saved, I have plenty for our business. That other purse you’re keeping is going to be our emergency fund, but you don’t need to worry. If I don’t grow our funds using your ability, I deserve to be poor and rot in the slums in a city.”
“Don’t worry father. If your business fails, I’m still going to be very pretty someday. I’ll marry someone very rich, and I’ll let you live in our manor in the city, and we’ll go to cafes every day and read stories and listen to bards.”
“What is your obsession with cafes?” Anton asked his sister.
“Nancy, one of my friends visited a city once and she boasted about going to a café and tasting the most wonderful drinks and the most delicious cakes. We all know she was lying but we all let it pass since it’s her story to tell and it’s entertaining enough,” Anna said contemptuously.
Anton laughed when he heard what his sister said, and their father joined him.
“When are we going to reach the Tiande City father?” Anna asked.
“Since we’ll probably stop in the larger villages for a day or two, we would probably arrive later than planned. My first plan was to travel without stopping constantly and we would have arrived there in two weeks but now, we’ll probably arrive there in four weeks at most.”
“We’ll need guards Father. Can you find a couple from the village? It would be better for me personally to be able to meditate without the need to do guard duty. It’s very important for all of us to increase my strength as soon as possible.”
“You’re right son. I’ll look for two people tomorrow. I hope we find suitable ones.”
After dinner, they all went back to their rooms to get a change of clothes so they could take a bath. Anton and his father would still be able to enjoy the mana water from his Blizzard spell, but Anna would have to do with the normal water since it would be weird for Anton to visit the women’s bathroom.
“No! I want to bathe in mana water.” Anna whined.
“Well since you’re acting like a princess, you can demand a bathtub from the innkeeper to be brought to your room and I’ll fill it with mana water. Of course, Father will have to compensate the inn for that.”
“Of course, I’ll do it since you did promise me that if my business fails you will take me in your manor once you marry a rich noble,” Anders said then he laughed boisterously which surprised Anton since this was the first time he heard his father laugh loudly.
“We’ll need to wait until Anna’s bath is ready before we can take our own Anton.”
“Sure, Father. I’ll wait in our room.”
After a few minutes, Anders told Anton that Anna’s bathtub in her room was ready, so Anton filled it up with water from the Blizzard spell then he and his father went downstairs to take a bath. He filled their bathtub with mana water as well and before they started soaking in it, Mark offered to heat it using a spell which he did using his Fire Bolt spell with its mana controlled by him to avoid accident. When his father soaked his body in the hot mana water, he heard Anders sigh.
“This is one of the best feelings that I have ever experienced. I would guess we can call this water a truly miraculous healing water. I can feel my muscles relaxing and even the aches and pain that came from age and abuse from my mercenary days and my farm work is slowly disappearing.”
“I’m glad you like it Father,” Anton said while he also sighed when he soaked his body in his bathtub. The feeling was truly wonderful, and he agreed with Anders's sentiments fully.
While they were taking a bath, he asked his father some questions regarding their would-be guards.
“Father, what are we going to tell our guard when it comes to my magic, magic space, and our repair work?”
“There’s nothing to it. We will tell them the truth since it’s common enough for wizards to hire mercenaries and guards. We don’t have to explain the details of your magic to them since it’s expected that no non-mages would ever understand magic.”
“Are wizards that common that you can find them visiting a village just like our situation?”
“No, it's not common. It does happen and when it does, it usually becomes the stuff of stories so I’m expecting that whoever joins us will be expecting that their names will be part of an adventure story someday.”
After their talk, the father and son spent an hour relaxing in their tub before going back to their room. It did not help that when Anders saw his son heating his water constantly, he asked his son to do it to his water as well.
When they arrived in their room, Anton and Anders saw that Anna was already waiting for them.
“What took you so long?”
“Our bath is different from yours since ours is very hot. I heated them using a spell,” Anton taunted his sister.
“No fair!” Anna cried.
“Father, that reminded me of something. Can you buy a bathtub that we can use on the road? And privacy screens that we can set up to surround the tub, so we don’t need to set it up far from our camp. We can just surround it with privacy screens.”
“That’s a good idea son. I will find one tomorrow or hire someone to make it.”
“Will it delay us too much?”
“It doesn’t matter. I too want to have a bath of your mana water every day if I can,” Anders said.
“I thought of another good idea! Maybe we can use a bucket to do our toilet business and have my magic repair the bucket if we break it a little to check if it will clean it!”
“That’s a marvelous idea brother!”
“You know what, let’s test it out now. This is very important!”
The whole family went outside the inn, and they didn’t care if all eyes were on them. They borrowed a broken bucket from the inn, went somewhere, and stained the bucket with some dirt. Then Anton put it in his inventory and had the blacksmith in Lut Gholein repair it. When it came out of the game, the bucket looked newly made and very clean.
“It’s a success! We need someone to create a special bucket that we can sit on to do our business. Let’s draw a design on paper and have a carpenter make it.”
“You handle the design and I’ll go ahead and talk to people tomorrow to have a bathtub and bucket seat made. We will want to rush it and it would cost us a pretty penny, but it will be worth it,” Anders said to which Anton and Anna fully agreed.
“Once it’s made, I will test it out in the bathroom, so we’ll know for sure,” Anton said, and his father and Anna just nodded.