Chapter 228: Al and Horse
「I can finally move my body!」
Vigorously jumping down from the carriage, Eleonora-neesan pleasantly shouts.
It’s been around three, four hours since the carriage had moved from early in the morning. We took a break in the plains at the same time as we let the horses rest.
The plains have a nice view, with soft-looking grasses growing on them, and a small river flowing nearby. There is nothing like a forest to block our field of vision in our surroundings, so we will immediately know about it even if there are monsters or ferocious animals approaching us. And the flowing water is also clean, it’s a perfect place to take a break.
Slowly getting off the carriage, I push up both of my arms and stretches my body.
Then, I stretch my back muscles and my joints are making nice-cracking sounds.
I guess it’s because I’ve been sitting inside the carriage this whole time. Looks like my stiff muscles began to relax.
I bring down my arms while exhaling, then I take a deep breath.
I feel the fresh air entering my lung as it circulates inside my body. The air is also fresh and clean, it’s the best.
Looks like I’m going to be able to spend my time comfortably here.
「Ara, what a nice place」
「Yeah, As expected from Row-san. Looks like he stops in a nice place」
Even Nord-tousan and Elna-kaasan - who was active adventurers - are also praising the place. Sure enough, Row-san is used to traveling so I think he’s good at choosing this kind of place and the road to take.
When I looked in Row-san’s direction, he was walking to the small river while bringing the horses with him.
He’s probably going to give feeds and water tthe horses.
For some reason, I got curious about them so I followed after them.
「Aah, Alfried-sama. Don’t get too close to the back of the horse. They’ve been trained but there’s still a chance that they might kick you」
「Un, okay」
A horse’s leg strength is amazing. Even large adults can receive a serious injury if they got kicked, in some cases, some people even die. And I don’t usually have the chance to be in contact with a horse. I have to take proper measures and be careful.
Paying attention to my position, I accompany them at an angle.
After Row-san pulled their cords to lead them, he led them to a narrow river hidden in a grassy place.
The width of the river probably doesn’t even reach three meters. The depth is around my ankle and the water is really calm.
Maybe the horses are thirsty since they thrust their neck into the river and starts drinking the water in big gulps.
Then they snorted and spurted out something unknown whether they were water or snot in a spray.
That’s dangerous. It would have sprayed on me if I were not located upwind.
Even so, horses are big aren’t they. From the perspective of a seven years old kid like me, they’re big enough that I can only look up at them.
I know that they are not ferocious animals like monsters and they also exist even in the previous world, but as expected, it’s still scary seeing a creature much larger than yourself so close.
I’m confident that I will gonna run away if a horse were to chase after me.
However, when I look at it, it has double eyelids and its eyes are somewhat gentle.
Coupled with its soft-looking coat in front of me, it makes me want to really stroke them.
「Can I stroke them?」
「Yes, please try to get closer while talking to it diagonally in front of the horse」
Believing in Row-san’s words, I move diagonally in front of the horse.
「I’m going to stroke youー, just strokingー」
As I calmly approach the horse while talking like that, the horse's neck is moving closer to my direction, I guess it’s showing interest in me.
The horse sniffs the smell of the palm of my hand while snorting.
I wonder if the horse can distinguish people by their smell? I’m not familiar with the ecology of horses so I’m not sure, but it doesn’t look like this horse is very wary of me.
As I look at Row-san as if to make sure of the situation with him, he firmly nodded while gently smiling at me.
After confirming that, I lightly stroke the horse’s forehead.
「It’s warm」
The first thing I felt after touching the horse was the horse’s warm temperature. Guess that’s obvious since it’s a living animal, but it’s much warmer than I imagined it to be.
Then there was the horse’s soft coat.
When I gently run my finger through the hair, my fingers sink into the soft hair. It felt as though I was combing a woman’s soft hair. It makes me want to unconsciously keep on stroking the horse.
Since the horse doesn’t look particularly angry over my action, I continue to stroke the horse’s nape and forelock.
It was such a strong, thick nape. You can clearly feel the rugged muscles when you touch them.
Its forelocks are a little curly and stiff.
「……it might be a little similar to my hair」
「Hahaha, there are some parts of the horse’s hair with slight curl that seem a little similar」
Row-san cheerfully laughs when I inadvertently mutter.
Certainly, the slight curl at the end of the forelock and outer part is similar. But, I can’t be happy even if you tell me that I’m similar to a horse.
As I was staring at the horse with a complicated feeling, the horse’s head suddenly approaches me.
Even when I take a step back due to the sudden premonition, it’s already too late as the horse opened its mouth wide and bit into my hair.
「Eeeeeeh! What should I do Row-san!?」
If the horse went wild with my hair in its mouth, then it would probably turn out into a pattern where my hair will be pulled out.
「I’m sorry, please don’t move even a little! Hey, let go!」
Row-san ordered the horse to let go of my hair while I was anxious.
And yet, still, it bit onto my hair and did not let it go.
The horse doesn’t seem to care about it as if it was like 'why can't I eat this grass-like thing now'. This is the greatest crisis to my hair and scalp since I’ve been born as Alfried Slowlett.
Will this be okay, I wonder? It won’t be a laughing matter if my hair were to be eaten like this.
「Hey, let go! That’s not something you can put in your mouth! Let it go!」
Row-san persuasion continues even while I’m wondering like that.
However, the horse is not at all bothered by him. Really, it doesn’t look like it’s listening. The horse is vacantly looking into the distance while still chewing my hair.
This horse, I really have no idea what this horse is thinking. I’m feeling a little angry when I think that this absent-minded horse is holding the fate of my hair.
Just as I was getting slightly annoyed, the horse suddenly moves its mouth *moshamosha*. And at the same time, my hair is being pulled forcefully.
「Hiiiiiii!? Row-san, Row-san! My hair is now in an unprecedented crisis!」
「Aaahh, there’s no helping it! How about this then!」
Row-san took out a small, red fruit from his chest. And when he passes it in front of the horse, the horse quickly let my hair go and turned its head to the fruit. Might be this horse’s favorite food or something.
Putting that aside, now that my hair had been released I move away from the horse at full speed.
After that, I look into a stream’s surface to confirm my own appearance from the reflection.
「Uwaaー, it’s covered in the horse’s sticky saliva……」
I mutter while grimacing unconsciously.
My hair is normally soft with a slight curl at the end, but it was now limp because the horse was chewing on it and its saliva is now sticking all over my hair. Moreover, the saliva even reaches my scalp.
There’s no need for me to check on the smell by touching my hair, my whole hair smells like an animal.
They will definitely express their displeasure if I were to return to the others like this.
I scoop out the water from the flowing stream and use it to wash my hair.
But, that would take a long time, and I won’t be able to fully wash my hair if I do this.
「Darn itー, that idiot horse really did it!」
Feeling that it will be troublesome to wash it by myself, I create a ball of water using Water magic and thrust only my head into it.
Then I move the water current inside the water ball gently and wash my hair in one go.
It’s troublesome to wash my hair each and every time, so this is a technique of magic I came up with. With perfect control over the magic not to damage the hair and scalp.
The water from the water ball gently flows as if it was wrapping my hair and scalp.
Ahー, it feels so comfortable as though the hair is being washed by a hairdresser.
Hm? Wait. Why don’t I change the shape of the water into a hand and try to move it then? That way, the feeling should come close to the real thing.
I toss away the water ball and make a new water ball with Water magic.
Since it was generated in mid-air, I can increase the image of the magic while staring at my own arms.
Then, the shape of the water changes in the blink of an eye, and it became two arms-shaped water.
「Ooh, this might be possible!」
I bring the two water-shaped arms with the shapes of both my arm closer to my head while feeling excited.
And when the fingers touch my scalp, the finger collapsed with a *pashari* sound.
「Huh? Was the magic power compression too weak?」
So I pour a lot of magic power into the magic and raise the strength of the Water magic.
Water magic has the property of strongly maintaining its shape as you compress and cram it with a lot of magic power inside.
After compressing the magic power and creating the shape, I try using the magic again.
The hands created with water magic got closer to my head……
And then, the fingers didn’t collapse this time, firmly caressing my scalp.
After that, I start to move it slowly to wash my hair.
「……ooh」
I unintentionally let out a sigh as I feel the sensation of the cold water gently stroking my scalp and hair like a hand. It’s just that, I guess I can’t reproduce the movement of a hand somewhat since there are some stiff parts.
But this is undoubtedly a hairdresser's hands. Truly wonderful.
I developed yet another wonderful magic.
All those disgusting things had been removed as I wash my hair while pursuing the ideal movements for the fingers.
When I cancel the magic, my hair and scalp had become very clean.
I feel like the wind is softly stroking my scalp each time a refreshing wind blows.
「I, I don’t become bald, right?」
I found out that my hair is fine when I hurriedly crouch down to look at myself on the water's surface. Even when I try to touch the place where it was not reflected on the water surface, there are no parts where I become bald.
I deeply sigh in relief.
My head feels so refreshing after feeling the wind since I was worried that I involuntarily become bald just now.
From now on, I’m going to use these water hands every time I’m washing my hair.
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