A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 22: One More Day

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 22: One More Day

-VB-

In my new home with Amy out and helping in the hospital, I found myself in an odd situation.

Technically speaking, I gave permission for it to happen; when they asked some of the things they overheard from New Wave, they asked to check the “safety” of my procedures. I let them, which resulted in… this.

“And this medicinal bath helps?”

“Yes.”

Despite my misgivings with the PRT and the Protectorate, I have been communicating a lot with them and showing them some of the works that I do. The latest of these show-and-tells was my medicinal bath.

It was something Amy and Vicky knew about, and no doubt word had already trickled from them to the PRT through one manner or another. It wasn’t as if I forbade them from talking about it.

Doctor Tassani and his two PRT subordinate researchers took samples of the medicinal bath. They completely ignored the fact that I was naked under the murky brown medicinal bath with twigs, leaves, and more. A normal person might have called it just muddy water, but they would only say that if they lacked a nose. All three PRT scientists had pins on their noses because of how strong the smell was.

Ever since my latest breakthrough, I realized that my normal medicinal bath was not cutting it. I couldn’t feel the growth - and hardening - of my body at a pace I wanted with the regular bath. As such, I had gone and made some significant changes.

The result was the bath I was currently in.

“... This bath is very rich with heavy metals,” one of them noted. “It’s too toxic for a normal person. I would go so far as to consider it carcinogenic.”

Eh?

“Excuse me, what?” I asked incredulously.

“Our branch is already aware of your increasing Brute strength,” Dr. Tassani hummed. “Is it possible that you are improving your body with metals found in organic substances?” He turned to me. “As Dr. Jibria over there said, this ‘bath’ is more toxic than some landfills, and yet shows no sign of damaging you.”

But there shouldn’t be anythin-.

Wait.

“Umm, I forgot to tell you all that this is the end result of a bath.”

That stopped them all.

“Excuse me?” the third researcher asked.

“Yeah, when I use these baths, I breathe through my skin, and things my body does not want leaves and enters the bath while the medicine within the bathwater enters me.”

“But your skin does not ‘breath’ as you would with your respiratory system,” Tassani muttered. What I heard however was the man not rejecting what I was saying. “Is that how your power works? Improving yourself through integration of external materials? And if so, how does ‘expelling’ unwanted materials from your body explain the toxicity of the bath?”

“I don’t know about toxicity,” I shrugged. “But part of what I do does involved in-takes, so I would say yes?”

“Hmm, and you have been doing this after testing it out yourself?”

“Well, I kind of knew what to do…” It wasn’t a lie.

“Got it.” The three of them took notes, but from how I saw their hands move independently and in movements not the same as each other, I expected they were writing down different things. Maybe they were writing down opinions or different aspects of what they thought was related to their fields? “And thank you. We’ll see ourselves out and lock the door.”

“Hmm?”

They packed up in seconds and left the first underground floor, walked up the stairs, and then I heard the front door click shut.

“... I don’t know how to feel about this.” And because I had allowed them in the house in the first place, I had no one but myself to blame for the awkwardly vulnerable feeling in me.

After another minute of staying in the now lukewarm medicinal bath, I got out of it and walked over to the shower stall in the corner of the room. A quick scrub later, I drained the bathtub of its content down the drain (wait, didn’t they say that my used medicinal bathwater was carcinogenic?). Cleaning the bathtub of the dead skins, leftover herbs, and other stuff took even more time despite my increased control and strength. Once that was done, I turned on the ventilation to suck the air out of this floor and out to the world.

… Wait, would the neighbors complain about the smell?

After thoroughly ending today’s cultivation session, I had more jobs to do.

House cleaning and programming, the two most tedious jobs put together.

How great.

-VB-

When Amy came back home with Vicky in tow, I just finished completing dinner.

“Ooh la la, what is this, what is this~?” Vicky sang giddily as she slid into the third seat. Before she could lift the fork, knife, and the chopsticks, Amy came around and lightly knife-chopped her sister over her hands. “Ow!” Vicky whined as she looked up to Amy with a pout.

“Wait until everyone is at the table,” she chided sternly and Vicky huffed.

I chuckled from the kitchen as I slid the now brown-coated mackerel into a plate before sprinkling it with cilantro and parsley on the side. I untied the apron, hung it on its rack, and came out to the dining area where Amy and Vicky waited.

I set the plate down and smiled. “Dig in.”

Vicky was the first to do so.

It’s been a week since I arrested the Undersiders, and it was also May. It’s been a week of good living. I trained. I fucked. I slept. I ate.

But time was coming close.

“So what’s the occasion?” Vicky asked as her eyes sparkled with delight.

I grinned with pride. I did put a lot of work into these, after all.

“Nothing special,” I hummed as I slowly ate my own food.

As the day of Leviathan’s attack came closer and closer, I found myself praying everyday.

Just one more day. Just one more day.

Just one more day of this bliss.

“Well, at this rate, I’ll be the breadwinner because I would hate to not eat this,” Amy grumbled. “Wait, how am I supposed to make money to make you a house husband?”

I chuckled. “I’m sure I can do cooking at the very least.”

Amy looked happy about that. “Good!”

I prayed as I savored this normality that I’ve come to like and loathed to lose. I spent each day like a gift. I put all my into them, whether it was work, training, or simply things like cooking dinner for the family.

Just one more day.