"Phew—this feels great..."
Amid the billowing steam, Roy leaned back against the edge of the marble bath, bare-chested, his eyes closed as he dozed.
Carbon Mountain's climate was bitterly cold, but there was no shortage of coal or firewood for heating, nor of water, so the bathhouse stayed open all night.
After a day's work, Carbon Mountain's blacksmiths, guards, and miners usually took a hot bath to wash away the grime and sweat and ease their fatigue.
It was around eight or nine in the morning. In broad daylight, the bathhouse could hold a hundred people, but aside from Roy, an outsider, only a handful of dwarves who'd just finished the night shift were there.
Wrapped in towels, most of them had bulging bellies, stout arms, and thick black hair covering their chests. If you didn't look at their faces, they bore a passing resemblance to gorillas.
Roy, by contrast, was an oddity: his skin was smooth, he had barely any body hair, and he was a great deal paler than the generally swarthy dwarves.
That made the bathing dwarves glance his way from time to time. If Roy hadn't known that dwarves were born "iron straight," he might have fled. Even so, he instinctively wrapped his towel tighter and pricked up his ears.
Two dwarves sitting across from him pointed at him and whispered among themselves. "Is that kid human? No chest hair, no fine beard on his chin—not an ounce of manliness... What an ugly little thing."
One of them stroked his own impressive beard, floating on the water, with evident pride.
"Aren't human men all hairless chickens? Our women would never be interested in them. But we can't let our guard down, brothers. They've never stopped coveting dwarf women. We mustn't let them have their way!"
"That's