Chapter 141 - Drying

While Maple was still wet, Ethan knew towels were needed, so he bought two large towels. One that would serve to avoid Maple sitting on the floor, and another that would serve to dry her, even though he intended to use his technique - at a much lower intensity - so that she could be completely dry.

This is because, being still unaware of many things related to the little fox who was looking at him with an adorable face as she waited to see what he would do next, Ethan preferred to play it safe.

'A tool to communicate now seems even more necessary than I thought'

He could express his thoughts in a limited way with the object the shop gave him, but he would be the only one able to communicate, while Maple would always be there, having only to listen to what he said, without the possibility to tell her own thoughts, because Ethan could only assume what was wrong with her and what wasn't...

He had thought for a moment to call Light so that she could gather information, but this little moment of hope, died immediately remembering she hadn't been heard in days..

Gritting his teeth for a second, Ethan shook his head slightly before returning to what he had to do at this time as he bought two large towels from the System at the cost of 150 SP each.

The low cost made him think they weren't good at first, but he realized soon they actually were of very good quality considering the standards of his old world, in fact Ethan had been looking for a type of towel that wouldn't bother animals, even if a regular towel wouldn't have bothered her at all...

Making the first one appear, Ethan didn't waste time and immediately spread the towel on the floor while Maple, curious to see what he was doing, got up on her hind legs and placed her paws on the edge of the tub so that she could see what she previously couldn't.

"You're doing great, now we just have to dry you off, and we're done..."

Saying these words with a smile on his face, Maple understood that he was referring to her and, from the tone his voice had, Maple nodded while Ais could only ask

"Does she..understand our language?"

It was obvious that such a question would be asked considering the intelligence Maple had shown in this small span of time, but when asked, Ethan brought a hand on Maple's head while she, instinctively lowered her head while his smile could only be more evident on his face.

"She doesn't, but she has the potential to learn it"

Ethan believed in Maple's intelligence. And as written in Inari's story, it was a fox who ruled and kept the peace between demons and humans, so Ethan had no doubts. If the other foxes had to learn other languages to communicate with all races, then Maple could definitely do the same.

The confidence in his words led Ais to think about it before looking towards Maple. She had realized she had no great strength from the moment she looked at her, and she had well realized her nature did not point to the wickedness. This, added to her superior intelligence, led Ais to wonder where Ethan might have found such an animal..

While Ais was asking herself this question, Ethan wrapped Maple in the towel leaving only her head uncovered before taking her in his arms.

Maple realized she had to be dried now, but instead of objecting or trying to communicate, she just tried to keep Ethan from getting wet while he turned around again, so that he could place her on the towel he had laid on the floor before.

Finished drying her, Ethan knew there was one last thing he had to do. He didn't know if Maple wanted this, but now that she was dried, bushing her tail was only natural for him, so Ethan decided to just do it while Ais, seeing his concentrated expression, asked another question as she sat next to where Ethan was sitting now.

"You've done this kind of thing before..? You seem to know exactly how to do it..."

It was true. Ethan wasn't good with animals, and he didn't have the knowledge 'required' to take care of an animal. But in reality, he was just going on instinct as the one thing that wasn't obvious Ethan knew was the need to brush her tail....

'I would like to avoid using something from my previous world too often...so for now, I would say that a brush from this world is enough'

He knew using too many objects that didn't come from this world wasn't always a good thing, so he opted to buy one of the brushes sold in this world.

Seeing Ethan holding this object, Maple realized what he wanted to do now, and she wanted to tell him he didn't need to bother so much about her, but before she could be able to communicate it, her eyes looked at his own, and the determination contained in them led her to look away as her tail, which remained stationary all the time, now was moving slightly.

Although noble, Maple was only four years old, and in those four years, her tail had never been touched by anyone other than her mother, who was in charge of brushing her tail every day, just as she bathed her.

She knew she could neither wash nor brush herself properly before she was able to use the art of transformation, which was also one of the requirements to be considered self-sufficient. In fact, even if normally the a.d.u.l.t age was reached on the 12-13 years old, for foxes already able to use the art of transformation in a prolonged way, they were considered able to take care of themselves, but with some limits...

While Maple was lost in her thoughts, Ethan gently took her tail before he began to brush it. The first thing he could see after the first few times he tried to brush her tail was that many fluff leftovers were stuck to the brush.

After a while that he was brushing, Ethan could see the difference from the beginning where many hairs left in the tail came out, while now this was no longer happening as, having already repeated the same action for a while, he understood it could be enough since he had taken care of the whole tail in detail, but he realized that on the floor, all of Maple's leftovers hair were there, and although this would normally be very hard to clean, Ethan knew he could take care of it quickly and easily by using [Avian].

Knowing he had finished, Ethan left Maple's tail, and she in response to this, moved slightly so that she could approach him before rubbing herself on his legs. This affectionate action caused him to smile again while, putting the brush down in the inventory, Ethan stroked Maple's fur with one hand as he moved the other to create wind that he would then control and boost with [Avian] to collect all the hair..

In Maple's mind, although this was a bit embarrassing, she wanted to thank him in some way for everything he was doing for her, and not being able to communicate it verbally, only this pure and affectionate act came to her mind...

While she hid her embarrassment by rubbing her head against Ethan's right leg, the latter had collected all the hair from the floor ingeniously. He had in fact decided to collect all the hair in a sort of cube before placing it in his inventory as he thought that maybe the System would have been able to tell him something about Maple if he had analysed them, but he knew that this was still a task for Light...

Sighing into his mind for the umpteenth time, Ethan was about to ask what they wanted to do now, but this thought made him remember there was something important he had to do...

'... Lefiya! I almost forgot about her. I said I would bring her home...'

He hadn't completely forgotten. In fact, prior to entering his room, Ethan had promised to pick her up after taking care of Maple, but he hadn't calculated that to take full care of her, three quarters of an hour had gone by so fast.. as he didn't even realize how long it would actually take to take care of someone before today...

These thoughts led Ethan to rise as he once again took Maple in his arms

"Ais, I forgot that I promised Lefiya I'd pick her up before I came home because of the state Yowaka was in, but now I'm pretty sure she's still waiting for me. How about we go get her together?"

Although Ethan had told her this, the reason he decided to invite her was different, in fact he hadn't forgotten what he had promised before he accompanied Lefiya to the Frozen Lychee Inn to talk about their relationship.

When asked, Ais nodded as she had nothing else to do for today while Maple was slowly getting used to being picked up by Ethan, and to the feeling of being protected only Ethan was able to make her feel at that moment...

'I wonder if it's a good idea to bring her into the city...'

From the reaction of the guard Ethan was very puzzled, but he knew that in addition to having Ais with him, Maple didn't emit any kind of hostility, which was probably because she had never fought before..

With his doubts cleared, Ethan went to the door while Ais followed him without saying anything else...

During the time Ethan was taking care of Maple, Lefiya dozed off for a few minutes before waking up as she had had plenty of sleep last night.

Upon waking up, she remembered everything that happened and, just thinking about it, brought her face to be all red in embarrassment.

She had no idea why, but at some point in their conversation, she could feel a feeling of lightness pervading her body as if it was okay to do whatever she wanted, and although she certainly liked it, she couldn't deny her embarrassment in having to meet him was even greater than before..

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(Alternate Titles: "That tail is finally brushed", "Maple's cuteness...", "Yes, we'll start with Lefiya from next chap")