As the trio along with Uta climbed the stairs leading to the upper floor where, of course, the bath chambers were, she announced "now that it comes to mind, I should warn you three," Uta said, "next week I won’t be around for a few days,"

  "Won’t be around? Where are you going?" Charmy asked, indiscreet as always, something that earned her a smack on the head from Lydia.

  Uta only smiled, "I’ll be heading back home."

  "Heading back home? You can do that?"

  "As a vine I can," she said.

  "Aw, lucky!

  "You want to go back home, Charmy?"

  "Me?" The girl hesitated, a reaction that quite surprised Ana. After all, she was the same girl who said she hated her hometown, so wouldn’t an immediate "no" be the right answer?

  "No," she ultimately answered.

  The answer surprised Uta, but she was different from Charmy, so instead of giving in to curiosity and asking why, she simply nodded and said, "I see. Anyway, I’ll be away for just three days, meaning that for your training—"

  "Don’t tell me Laura is getting in charge of us again?" Charmy asked, horrified.

  "You really don’t like her, do you," Uta frowned. "Rest assured, I was thinking about giving the days to you. Madam Violet talked about you three when I went to confirm my upcoming leave, so I think you three will have these three days to yourselves."

  "Yay, you heard that girls, it’s gonna be our—hey, now that I think of it how come none of you answered my calls at your door last night? Are you two purposely ignoring me?" Charmy suddenly asked.

  "You know, you should really stop knocking on people’s doors in the middle of the night like that," Ana remarked, trying to make it stop, for she had the feeling she would soon have to carry on nighttime adventures for her mission's sake, and it would be complicated to do so with someone checking on her presence in her room.

  "I agree. It’s annoying. I had a hard time sleeping because of the banging you made at my door."

  "It’s because you refused to open the door for me."

  "Yeah? Well, the next time you do that to me, I promise I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget."

  "Yaaaaaaah! Scary," Charmy laughed, before shielding herself beside Ana. "You heard that, Uta, Ana?s. She said she would hurt me."

  "If she hurts you, it will be deserved," Ana sighed, glancing at Uta before changing the subject. "You’re sure it’s going to be alright for us to go there?"

  Ana appreciated this opportunity, more easily than Charmy did, but she still felt like asking the question.

  "You mean the bath chambers?"

  "Yes. It’s in the upper floor for a reason, right? Isn’t it for the flowers exclusively?"

  She smiled warmly, "Well, you guys are practically already flowers, so I think it should be alright."

  "Riiiiight," Charmy chimed.

  "I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be open to you guys," she added, "but even if it isn’t, let me ta—"

  Midway through her claim, the girl leading halted mid-sentence and mid-climb, causing the trio behind her to also stop.

  "Uta?"

  She was swaying, her hand reaching for the stone of the wall. Her other hand instinctively fluttered toward her temple, eyes closing tightly. Ana was fast to understand, Lydia was faster to react. Without hesitation, she stepped up, a hand gently bracing Uta’s back, steadying her. "Got you."

  "Uta," Charmy finally reacted.

  "You alright?" Lydia asked, adjusting her hold on her.

  Uta nodded once.

  "Should we take you to your room, should we call someone?" Charmy suggested.

  "No, no need, I’m alright," she reassured, trying to stand on her own, but Lydia did not let go. She only released her after a few moments, as the girl seemed to straighten up.

  "You alright?" she once again asked.

  "I’m alright now. I just felt lightweight, but it passed."

  "You’re sure?"

  "Yep, don’t worry about that. I most likely felt that way… it’s most likely the nap I took earlier. I don’t typically nap at that hour of the day, it threw me off, but I’m good now. And guess what? I think I’ll be even better once I have this bath. You’re coming?" she asked, as she turned around and began her ascent to the upper floor.

  Exchanging glances with one another, the trio closely followed the girl from behind.

  The rest of the short journey was made in silence, one that was only broken as the quartet arrived at the curtained doorstep of the large room that was the bath chambers. Upon passing that curtained threshold, Ana stepped into a different world.

  The room was warm, misty, and flower-scented, filled with girly chatter that echoed chuckles along with the sound of water being poured, splashed, and splattered.

  Just as the doorless doorway was large, the room was humongous, especially for what was supposed to be bathing areas, but there was a special reason behind its size. Unlike any other bathroom Ana had ever visited in her life, this one was not for only one person to bathe in, but rather for a large group of people to bathe together. And, while the prospect of being naked, let alone cleaning herself in front of so many unknown faces, was initially unsettling for Ana, she had at this point forgotten about that concern.

  As they proceeded deeper into the bathing chamber, there were smiles first, then curious glances thrown at them from the flowers sitting in a corner, either soaping, scrubbing, or marinating themselves in small pools. The former glances were for their leader, the one they were closely following behind: the high-performing vine Uta. The latter were directed toward them: the new petals.

  Uta smiled and waved back at every glance she met, guiding the girls casually toward a section where they could get changed.

  Uta leading the process was partway through the process when she suddenly paused.

  Glancing at Ana, Uta let out a soft “Oh,” as if she’d just realized a mistake. “Ana?s, are you going to be alright?” she asked quietly. “Sorry, I forgot about…”

  Ana didn’t need the rest of the sentence. She simply followed the direction of Uta’s glance to understand exactly what the concern was referring to.

  "I didn’t think about this, sorry," she apologized over the fact that being half-naked forced her to reveal her hands and sleeves, which Ana usually kept hidden under gloves and a long-sleeved outfit.

  "It’s alright, it’s fine with me," she reassured, before deflecting the concern elsewhere. "I just hope it won’t cause any problem with the other flowers."

  "No, of course not," Uta immediately assured. "Come, I usually bathe in this corner," she declared, leading them somewhere deeper into the bath chambers.

  The spot in question was a corner near a large steaming pool, much, much larger than the one they’d seen before that could accommodate at best two persons at once; this one could accommodate at least a dozen persons. Half a dozen girls were, in fact, either swimming or sitting at the edge of the said pool.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Uta!" a familiar voice greeted at the sight of the trio’s leader.

  "Oh, if it isn’t the new girls," said another girl swimming inside the pool, smiling, upon noticing the trio.

  Ana also recognized the girl, like she recognized the other girls. They were the same she and Lydia met when they stepped into the upper floor for the first time, the same girls that Uta once entrusted the trio to, when she needed time to discuss something with Henri. Since then Ana and even the two others had had many encounters with the girls.

  "Yep," Uta nodded, before giving the obvious excuse, "today, I will be teaching them how a flower should properly pamper herself."

  "We'll be in your care!" Ana added in support, followed by Charmy and Lydia.

  "Oh," they echoed.

  "Someone is taking their training seriously," one of the girls, the one named Coral teased.

  "And someone is taking her duty very seriously," another girl teased the one named Dalya, poking at Uta.

  "Of course she does. How do you guys think she got where she is now if she didn’t take everything very seriously?"

  "I don’t know," one of the girls said, emerging out of the pool and making a clear display of her impressive cleavage, "perhaps by taking advantage of her god-like body."

  At the sight, Ana couldn't but notice that the girl beside her, Lydia seemed thoroughly fascinated by them.

  "If it were just that, wouldn’t you be the one with the princeling obsessing over you, not her?"

  The girl looked down at her body, undeniably making the comparison to that of Uta, and coming to the undeniable conclusion that she at least beat her in that area. "That’s…that’s actually fair," she burst into laughter along with the other girls, including Uta, who took the joke like what it was.

  "So, you’re joining us," Coral offered.

  "You three too," another flower invited.

  "Just so you’d know," Coral said, smacking the edge of the pool, before declaring, "this pool right here is the best pool of this bathhouse, and all of us here are this establishment’s top earners, so this water right here, it’s concentrated broth of success."

  That comment earned a gigantic burst of frenzied laughter from the girls, including Ana herself. With water splashed at her from the still frantically laughing flowers, the girl added, "Just a single dip and you’d be soaked in it. So, newbies, you coming?"

  "Yes!" replied a very hyped Charmy. But a couple of steps in, she was stopped by Uta who grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “Before you get corrupted by these succubi, you need to get cleaned first,” she said, gesturing toward the bathing areas on either side of the room. “You wash your vegetables before putting them into the stew, right? Same principle, you bathe before soaking in the pool.”

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, Uta, teach them young ones."

  The said bathing sections were right next to the pool, so seated there, taking their baths, soaping and scrubbing, they were having a discussion with the flowers in the pool several meters away.

  "You guys are actually super lucky," Coral remarked at their attention. "I heard you guys got individual rooms, is that right?"

  "Us, erm, yes," Charmy confirmed, "You didn’t?"

  "Back when we were petals?! Nope."

  "I had a bunk bed."

  "Me too, I shared my bunk bed with her," she said pointing at a fellow flower.

  "Oh, I didn’t…I didn’t know."

  "Uta, have you ever taken them to where petals like them were put?"

  Uta shook her head. "I'll show them as soon as I get the opportunity to."

  "When did it change?" Ana asked curiously.

  "I don’t know," Uta replied, "but I think you’re the first batch of petals to have their individual rooms."

  "We were all stacked together, in a shared room," complained another. "You guys really need to see our old room."

  "To be fair, there were at least five times more newbies than now back then, so since there are only three of them, it makes sense that they’re given more attention."

  "That’s why I said they were lucky."

  "For sure they are," looking at the trio, the girl listed, "You got an individual room, you got a nice trainer;" she looked at Uta who was applying shampoo to Charmy’s hair with a teasing grimace, "one that was quick to bring you to the upper floor. She even brought you to the bathhouse. Damn it should have been me!"

  "Don’t be jealous!"

  "I’m not! Screw it, I am. Remember our trainer? It took the bitch three months before she brought us to the upper floor, and that only to work in the restaurant’s kitchen."

  Despite being what it is, the Garden offered several additional services to the one such an establishment as the Floravelle is known for. The restaurant is one such service. There is a section of the castle that provided high-quality restoration service, befitting the nobles and high-ranking clerics and paladins that are the establishment’s main clientele, clientele that flowers, vines, and blooms are greatly incentivized to bring to the restaurants. Other than restaurants, the Garden also boasted suites that could be rented like a hotel would, and an extensive collection of clothes that patrons could purchase. The flowers are, of course, incentivized to make their patrons spend as much in these businesses, creating a unique ecosystem.

  "The restaurant’s kitchens? Is it a terrible place?"

  "My sweet summer child, you have no idea."

  "There is no worse place for a petal than the kitchens."

  "If you were lucky you were sometimes put in waitress service, you could live with the hope that you might get noticed by one of the clients, but if you weren’t, you were kept in the kitchen peeling endless potatoes and carrots on a good day, washing cow guts on a bad one."

  "Imagine doing that for 3 months."

  "That’s nothing, imagine 6."

  Realizing how terrible the petals’ past used to be, the trio nodded.

  "Thinking back, I think that trainer might have hated us. Genuinely."

  "Because you were thinking that she wasn’t."

  "Hahaha, did you think that it was that thing, what’s it called again?"

  "Tough love?"

  "Yep, yep, that."

  "Yep, now looking at Uta I realize there was no love at all in the heart of that trainer," she sighed, "just toughness."

  "Better realize that late than never."

  "Yeah, hahaha."

  It was about then, as they were laughing, that Ana, from the corner of her eye, noticed a familiar silhouette. It was Laura, who didn’t miss noticing them; she paused, most likely, Ana imagined, because she did not expect to see them here.

  "Hey, isn’t that Laura over there?" one of the girls remarked.

  "Yep, the girls’ former trainer."

  "Huh?"

  Most likely realizing she’d been sighted, the girl ignored them and immediately took station on her own in the bathing section.

  "What’s up with her? Sitting on her own."

  This section was like a room on its own. On one end were Uta, Ana, and the others; there was also another girl bathing on her own in the left corner. Laura chose to sit on her own in the right corner. The sight was kind of saddening, so Ana offered, "I’ll go greet." These words she specially addressed to Charmy, whose reaction was the most predictable when she asked, "wanna come?"

  A grimace she could not hide crossed her face. "I need a couple more minutes with the shampoo in my hair," the girl pretexted.

  "I see," Ana nodded, then stood up. She didn’t cast a glance at Lydia, didn’t even offer to come. "I’ll greet her on your behalf then," she said as she walked toward the girl. Without a word she sat on the stool right next to Laura.

  Being so close, Laura could not ignore Ana. Their eyes met.

  "Hello, Laura," Ana greeted, being as friendly as friendly can go.

  This elicited a frown of confusion from the girl, who surely didn’t remember them being so friendly. But with a touch from Ana, and a whisper, "‘Remember the truth,"

  "We’re friends, right?"

  "Yes, we are, Ana?s."

  Ana smiled. Originally, she’d only planned to use Laura once, to extract as much information as possible. But she quickly realized that what she needed wasn’t just a source. She needed an ally. Which left her with only one option: to create one.

  Using [Tethered Will] and [Falsify Memory], Ana had forged a literal alternate version of Laura, one who was loyal to her. It was, of course, temporary. This version of Laura only existed when Ana allowed it, just like now. And as soon as her help was no longer needed, Ana intended to erase every trace of it from the girl.

  Having a loyal ally at all times would certainly be useful, but Ana understood how dangerous such tampering could be. Using her abilities, tools that could persuade, manipulate emotion, and rewrite memory forced her to confront a simple truth: the mind was a fragile thing. It could fracture. It could break. And Ana wasn’t confident she could repair a mind once it shattered.

  She felt guilty for using her powers on someone who didn’t deserve it. Laura wasn’t a threat. Just a mean but ultimately innocent girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Ana needed her now, and she promised herself she’d fix everything later.

  Hopefully, that time will come soon.

  "Listen. I talked to every girl you mentioned. I gathered the names, spoke to their friends and roommates, and checked everything I could about all thirteen of them… well, twelve. I’m missing only one: Margot. The lonely flower you said was a low performer like you. I couldn’t find anything about her. No friends. Getting her name alone was a hassle. And once I had it, all anyone told me was that she was transferred to another Garden. Her last roommate moved out five months before her transfer, and she hasn’t shared a room since. There’s nothing about her except what you told me: she had a patron. A scholar from the Aetherneum. Short, chubby, pampered-looking, not very wealthy, and with a weak presence.

  "After digging into her case, I realized he’s the only lead I have. And here’s the problem, Laura: I don’t know anything about him. Not his name, not his face. But you do. So I’m going to need your help."

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "We need to find that noble. You know what he looks like. Have you seen him again in the Garden?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes!? Tell me about it."

  "He’s back to the garden. I’ve seen him talking with a new flower."

  "Oh," Ana was intrigued. "What flower? Do you know her name?"

  To these questions Laura didn’t answer, which puzzled Ana. Instead she turned around to look at a girl sitting in a corner rinsing off shampoo on her own. "It’s her."

  "The flower. It’s her?"

  "Yes."

  "I see."

  Ana wasted no time. A few words exchanged with Laura, the duo stood up and walked up to take seats both to the left and the right of the girl. "Helllo," there Ana greeted, a large smile on her face.

  "Hi," the girl, a clearly older flower. She seemed in her mid twenties, long ginger hair, a face that could no longer be referred to as cute, only beautiful, but still if compared to peerless flowers like Uta and co, she was at least twenty flowers behind.

  "My name is Laura."

  "And my name is Ana?s," Ana added, reaching for the thigh, an act that made the flower look into her eyes, their eyes locking, her attention fully captured. "I’m a petal, a junior of yours, I have a few questions for you."