“Good morning Lord Cry-aaaaah!” Hana came bouncing into Lopi’s room carrying a giant filled bucket waking him up from laying on the large book he was sleeping on. As before, Hana tripped. Lopi got a strong sense of déjà vu. Now he sees why the old Lopi would possibly get frustrated if this sort of thing was a daily occurrence. It’s risky for that sort of teen who is especially sex-obsessed if someone barges into his room at the wrong time. Lopi wasn’t annoyed for more than half a second though, because the water in the bucket froze in midair before moving its way back into the fallen bucket that Hana had held back upright. After the water was in the bucket Hana wiped her brow with the back of her hand.

“Whew, luckily this time it was water so I could catch it.”

Lopi was still shocked.

“How did you stop the water from spilling everywhere?” he asked.

“Well if I’m going to be a maid for the nobility I have to be able to do this much. You know, I was sent to the orphanage when I was born, but luckily I have a natural ability in water magic so I was able to get training. I am already in the late stage condensation stage.” Hana said while puffing out her chest and cheeks.

Arrow knew that magic was a thing in this world, but he didn’t know it was a thing that people could do. In hindsight, Lopi’s diary had mentioned the condensation stage when referring to the stage of his younger female cousin, but he hadn’t thought much of it at the time since the diary didn’t put much importance in how magic was actually done, barely mentioning anything about it.

So he’s supposed to be able to do magic? How? Does it have something to do with cultivation? He doesn’t feel any sixth sense after switching bodies. Maybe something weird happened when he transferred. Can a human from a magic-free earth manipulate magic now that they’re in a magical earth person’s body?

“So you can manipulate water with just your mind?” Lopi asks Hana.

 

“Not like it’s a big deal or anything. I can’t do it with a lot of water though, and I can’t move it quickly in an attack, but I can draw a little water from the air and check for poisons in drinks.” Hana puffed out her chest. While being at the level she is isn’t that impressive for an adult, for a commoner child her age being in the late condensation stage was fairly impressive. Her ability to comprehend her ability meant she was actually intelligent for her age, a fact that most people who met her found unbelievable.

Hana noticed Lopi giving her a mysterious gaze and she remembered that he was only in the early stage of condensation. Contrary to her being ahead for her age, Lopi, whom she worked for, was considered to be a waste when it comes to magic. Noble children generally spent more time on cultivation so many of them were at her level by the time they reached her age. It could be seen as rude to try to brag in front of Lopi who had barely touched on his cultivation journey.

“Oh, not that it matters. You are much better at the sword. Besides, isn’t water magic completely useless for anything except a maid? Hehehe,” Hana said, in an attempt to be polite.

“I don’t think so,” responded Lopi, with the mysterious stare intensifying. Hana began to sweat. He really didn’t seem to accept her apology.

Lopi was amazed. Any chemist on the planet would give their left nut for the ability to be able to chemically manipulate and read water solutions. It’s a shame that it’s wasted on this child from a backwards Earth. Since she’s in servitude to him maybe he can get her to learn science. He’s not as up to date with chemistry as he is with physics, but he has some working knowledge up to organic chemistry.

Hana pulled a wooden bath tub from our of her wrist. Now that it was day, Lopi could see that she was using a copper bracelet on her wrist to bring things out of midair.

Hana filled the bucket with water while chatting about breakfast. Lopi honestly felt full from the day before, so he asked for some fruit. Hana then dropped some heat stones in the water and left the room. Lopi took off his clothes and climbed into the bathtub. He was playing with the stones at the bottom of the tub when a group of four older women barged in wearing aprons and earth-colored dresses that reached below their ankles.

Lopi was greatly taken aback and shrunk his thin shoulders underneath the water. The women barely gave him a dismissing glance. They'd raised their children to adulthood, and to them, Lopi was barely more than a child.

“Time for your bath.” Said one of the older maids, with apple-red hair looking down her nose at him, not giving him a chance to refuse. It’s not that she expected him to refuse, it’s just that the woman had that soccer mom air to her born from raising five children to adulthood while holding the Northern Front with her sword. Lopi swallowed his refusal and just accepted anything that would happen to him.

They scraped his body down with oil, and while Lopi looked a bit clearer, he didn’t feel clean because he was still greasy. Apparently the people in this world hadn’t learned to use lye based soap. That sort of explained the smell that hit his nose when he opened the door to the street outside yesterday. Well, as Lord of this district he can change that! He’ll just directly show these uncivilized folk how to live in modern society. Yes, the townspeople will use soap and his maid will be a chemist!

While Lopi was thinking about reforming his peasants, the four older maids were busy treating him as a child by ignoring him and gossiping to each other about what was going on in the town.

“I heard from the grape vine that the baker’s wife is expecting another child. Isn’t that simply divine?” said the shortest maid with curly lavender and grey hair.

“Oh isn’t that divine! I remember when I was having my second. It was hectic at first, but somehow not as confusing as the first one. I wonder what they’re going to name them?” responded a second maid with pink and white hair. It looked cute on her, unlike on Lopi. On him it just looked like a degenerate. Not that Lopi thinks that people with pink hair are generally degenerates, it just was incredibly out of character of him. It’s like if he had a face tattoo one day as someone who has never been inside a tattoo parlor before, or decided to show up to work one day dressed like a bird. He’d just feel embarrassed.

“Hmph, I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. After all, their first son is already a plant mage. Chances are since both parents are plant mages that the second child will also be a plant mage. Then he’ll just be another vagabond on the street once his older brother inherits the bakery.” A third maid with lime green and gold hair humphed. She didn’t like children as much as the other two and had taken the job of taking care of the young lord out of pure necessity wheras the other three received their positions from their spouses who were the lord’s retainers inherited from his father. She was completely unafraid of his authority. The boy was a waste. She just wished her community wasn’t run by such a useless lord. She had found some problems here with the last Lord of Crystalberg, but that was a walk in the park compared to the situation under the name of the young lord.

“Now, now, Berra, we just need to keep going. There’s a chance that the baker’s son will be an Earth mage and be able to work for the royal crystallin mine,” responded the lavender-haired maid.

“hrmph, unlikely.”

Lopi could feel a sharp glare at the back of his neck. He gets it, they don’t like the current government, which was run by family members that were willing to kick him out on the streets. Well, he doesn’t like the current government either. The lordships seemed to be set up to be very similarily to a corporation. Luckily for the people in this ancient town their new leader was a tech genius. All he has to do is get these people to pump out 21st-century products like soap and he’ll be able to bolster the income of this small town. He decided to give his intention to the women around him.

“I am thinking of changing things around here. I don’t think my family likes me very well. I mean, I don’t think they have my best interest at heart. I shouldn’t trust people like that to manage my land or my people.”

The woman stared at Lopi, making him feel small. Well, you could suppose he is. Both in height and in years.

“Imagine him trying to fire the Representatives from the capital household, hahaha, he’d be thrown out on his face faster than he was thrown out of The Crystal Hotel. Heh-” The lavender and pink-haired maids broke out in laughter.

“Ah, you are useless still yet.” Grumbled the third maid, Berra, and jabbed at him with a stick.

Lopi became flustered. Is his title worth nothing to anyone? Not to his servents care for his show of power, what's the chance of anyone else believing in him. See, this is why he never tried to work for a major corporation.

“Hush and stop playing around,” said the red-haired who seemed a lot more serious and dangerous than the other three, and who was the first one who spoke to him when entering his bedroom. “ It may be risky, but having no rule would be better than allowing those capital scum to keep traipsing around here. My husband is in closed door cultivation right now, but as his lord you can call him out. He was a knight under your father and took on the role of steward once the old one went back to your mother’s family. Get dressed and come into the next room.”

One of the maids cleared up the water using magic and cleaned then cleaned up the oil on his body with the same magic.  Lope was definitely clean now, he just smelt a little meaty, but not at all like sweat. Lopi was suddenly struck with a load of humility. Okay, so maybe there isn’t a reason to change the ways of the entire world. They have magic, so why would they need to start using soap and water? Lopi, sadly, is too ignorant to rightfully help anyone. Did he promise too much when he said he’d successfully lead the town? Imagine forcing everyone to do something entire fruitless and uneconomical.  Lopi was raised in a politically conservative town, so he understood how some people would hate a change in their life that they deemed even slightly inconvenient or out of the way. Maybe it was for the best if he didn’t change too much of this world.

After putting on clothes behind a curtain the cheerful two maids put a few accessories on him and propped a full size ornate mirror in front of him.

 

“How would you like to fix your hair sir?” asked the pink and white-haired maid.

 

Lopi looked at himself seriously in a normal mirror for the first time and his pupils dilated in horror. What was his hair doing? Like it was a bowl cut and it was down below his shoulders behind his back. His clothes were also green and orange. It was an awful mesh of colors. He also had one of those ridiculous foot wide ruffled collars on, and the chest plate that he’d put on made him look like he had a giant chest, almost as bulgy as the shiny copper codpiece.

So he’d mindlessly put on the outfit, treating it as a costume, but he hadn’t really seen the whole thing together. Normally, Lopi thought he didn’t put much effort into his clothes. Since he worked as a glorified custodian at a university he’d frequently get pulled into various club activities just for competitions as a backup supervisor on the day of competitions. It was a thankless task, but he always got a free dark-colored club t-shirt to make it look like he was one of the group. Between those shirts, and shirts that came from buying deluxe editions for video games most of Arrow’s wardrobe was made. He just had to buy black skinny jeans and a random pair of leather sneakers twice a year and he blended into work and everyday family events perfectly.

“I can’t go out like this! Who picked this out for me?”

The maids were accustomed to the old Lopi throwing temper tantrums whenever the clothes they picked out for him wasn’t to his liking. The old Lopi was only willing to wear the latest and most innovative fashion from the capitol’s most reputable designer clothing firms. The maids checked the outfit he was wearing to see if they had accidentally given him something from last season, but it seemed up to date.

“But these are clothes from your favorite fashion house, Violent Butterfly…” responded the pink-haired maid.

Lopi laughed sardonically. He looked like a mangled butterfly alright.

“I don’t care who made it. Is there something else for me to wear.”

“Uh, let me see. “

The pink-haired maid had wind powers was mostly in control of dressing Lopi. Honestly, she’s the only one who was able to keep track of his unique taste. She touched her wrist, and pulled out a wardrobe with Lopi’s newly bought clothes in it and began searching through it. Every article she pulled out only drew a disgusted look from Lopi and rejection.

Lopi sat in a chair in front of the mirror. He caught a second glance at himself. Ah, yes, the hair. He counted himself as lucky to have made it throughout school in the United States without being given a bowl cut or a mullet, but now he had both. Gross.

“So can anyone really fix this thing on my head or do I have to go to a barber?” asks Lopi.

“Crystalberg doesn’t have any barber, no one would be able to pay for that luxury, but I can cut your hair. Do you want it a bit shorter? You just got it cut yesterday.” Asked the lavender-haired, very unsure. Lopi had asked for this specific haircut the day before. He’d even had to take pricey hair growth pills so that he could have more hair to work with at the back.

“Yes.” He'd never been surer of anything in his life.

“Cut it how then?”

“Cut the back up to my neck first, and I guess make the rest…” Lopi wanted to say “normal”, but who knows what a normal looks like here. “well, I guess cut the sides shorter, and then we’ll see.”

The Lavender haired maid began cutting his hair cautiously. She had plenty of experience cutting the hair of her children, and even her grandchildren, but the young Lord seemed to be in a very particular mood today. Meanwhile, the pink-haired maid was still trying to find clothes that Lopi approved of.

“Don’t you have anything normal?”Lopi asked.

The pink-haired maid gave him an exasperated look. Normally she was quite patient, but Lopi was being confusing.

“The indisputable style for the summer season is vibrant prints regardless of which lines you’ve purchased from.”

“Then do you have anything from another season? Something in black?”

The maids were shocked. Lopi’s biggest pet peeve had always been outdated fashion. He didn’t even want to wear things that looked like they may have come out the previous season. He grabbed new fashion concepts by the teeth and didn’t let go. Only now, he was actually telling them to give up on that.

Meanwhile, the hair was shaping up. The mullet was gone and the sides were less round, and Lopi’s head looked like half a wheel from the side.

“For my hair the overall length is good, but I want a little more layering in the front and a lot more in the back. The bangs are just way too sharp. I want them to go this way, or maybe this way. I don’t know. You decide. You can see it better.”

The request was strange. Noble men generally had longer well-groomed hair, usually tied at the neck in a low ponytail, to show they didn’t have to do manual labor, but Lopi was requesting something the opposite of that. Maid 1 cautiously finished cutting his hair, and honestly, it didn’t look half bad. The softer style brought out the delicateness of his nose and chin and also framed his large eyes and long lashes subtly.

Lopi stared himself in the mirror. Ah, the bangs were a bit foppish, but for a high school boy, it’s tolerable. It's a shame that nothing can be done about the hair color. Pink was his natural color and everyone else had colorful hair, so dying it back to brown may look out of place. As long as he wears more black he may look okay. He just wasn’t accustomed to being so… bright. Lopi squeezed his cheeks. His mouth seemed to be in a permanent neutral smirk. Yeah, that was weird. It’s just the way his upper lip was shaped. He was going to live the rest of his life slightly smiling at everyone, and looking seemingly inviting which is just wrong since he doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone. Well, at least he had some sort of five a clock shadow. If he can grow out his beard he can just hide half his face.

Eventually, the pink-haired maid did the best she could. She was able to find a black pair of velvet shoes from prayer class, a pair of black britches that he’d received as a gift, and the best that she could find for a top was a high collar navy tunic with silver trim that one of the fashion houses mistakenly sent to Lopi several years ago, instead of the silver tunic with trim in the shape of little red boats. Lopi, of course, threw a fit when it arrived, but they ended up not returning it. She was able to find a truly mysterious pair of navy stockings with silver trim that may have been for in a crate of odds and ends.

“Okay, let me change then.”

Lopi then began to take off his clothes starting with that silly codpiece.

“Ah!”

“Aye!”

“No! You can’t change in front of us.”

Lopi got flustered. Didn’t they just bathe him? He told them as much.

“The context is completely different. We needed to wash you. You can’t just get undressed in front of a woman who’s not related to you even if she’s like a mother to you, sigh.” explained the lavender-haired maid. The three maids that were in the room realized that Lopi was just so naïve when it comes to the differences between men and women. This type of mentality explains where some of those rumors from the school come from.

Lopi silently went behind the curtain. He really can’t just assume social rules here. He assumed the maids were like babysitters, and just accustomed to seeing him naked all the time. It would take observation and practice to find out how life works in this place. Hopefully, he’d be able to see the town today.

Lopi changed and looked at himself in front of the mirror. Okay. He still looks like a weirdo, but not quite a weirdo that’s blinding to look at. At least now he was wearing something that he’d wear normally… but, maybe only at a wedding given that the wedding was also at a renaissance festival.