Chapter 21
Chapter 21. The Woman in the Robe (2)
Anagin tilted his head.
A mage who claimed to be good at laundry…?
It wasn’t that he was looking down on laundry. He hated to admit it, but he had just lost a battle to it.
Still, he couldn’t quite understand what laundry had to do with magic.
“It’s better to show you than to explain a hundred times. Just wait and see.”
The robed woman stood up confidently and walked toward the pile of laundry.
There were two heaps.
One pile was clothes that hadn’t been washed yet and were only soaking in water.
The other was the collection Anagin had washed himself, now nothing more than rags.
“Whoa… are you a clothes merchant or something?”
“Do I look like one?”
“Judging by the way you talk, not really. But that’s a lot of clothes.”
“They’re all mine. I have to change clothes once a day.”
The robed woman looked at him with wide, astonished eyes.
To hear someone say something so extravagant while living out in the open, she wondered if he was some kind of young master.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s just… I’ve never met a rich man before. You must’ve spent a fortune to buy this many clothes.”
“It’s fine. I picked them up for free.”
“You… picked them up?”
“Yeah. I beat up a few unlucky bastards, stripped them, and took their clothes. So yeah, picked up.”
“……”
“What are you staring at? Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be doing laundry?”
Anagin waved the chunk of meat in his hand—meaning that once he finished eating it, he was leaving.
With a sigh, the robed woman lifted her robe slightly.
As she raised it, her legs came into view—slender yet agile-looking.
Still wearing her robe, she waded into the stream and began washing the clothes.
Splash, splash.
'Nothing special.'
Watching her, Anagin thought to himself.
She was washing the soaked clothes in the stream with care, but honestly, it didn’t look much different from what he’d done.
Then.
[Stains, begone. Rub-rub—! Stains, begone. Rub-rub—!]
The robed woman suddenly began chanting some strange incantation as she scrubbed.
It had rhythm—almost like she was singing. But Anagin quickly realized it was a spell.
A sort of intuition told him so.
She was using magic to do laundry.
So she really was a mage, just as she’d claimed, and confident for good reason.
“Do you know anything about magic, mister?”
Still scrubbing clothes with that cumbersome robe on, the robed woman threw the question at him.
After a brief thought, Anagin answered,
“A little.”
Magic.
He’d heard about it from his master—vaguely.
‘It’s said to be a power that bends the laws of the world by harnessing the mysterious force known as ‘Yeom (念).’
The robed woman giggled.
“That’s the kind of answer people give when they actually don’t know anything.”
“?”
“When it comes to magic, it’s better to know nothing than to know it half-baked.. If you know only a little, you start thinking it’s something grand, and that just gets in the way.”
“So you’re saying it’s not as complicated as it sounds?”
“Exactly!”
Stopping her work, the robed woman pointed her index finger at him.
Her wet, pointed fingernail shimmered in the sunlight.
“It’s fancy talk to say magic twists the laws of the world—but in simpler terms, it’s just throwing a tantrum. It uses mental energy: will, desire, intent. Meaning, with a bit of talent, anyone can use it, and for any purpose. Like this!”
She pulled out one of the garments and spread it wide.
Paang!
As she snapped the wet fabric open, droplets scattered in every direction—and the cloth gleamed under the sunlight, spotless, as if brand new.
It really was clean—perfectly so.
“…There’s no hole.”
Anagin marveled at the intact clothing.
When he’d washed them so painstakingly, holes had appeared everywhere. Yet hers looked untouched.
Was laundry even biased between men and women? Damn it.
“It’s not bias, it’s skill. If you just rub with brute force, of course, it’ll tear apart. You’ve never done laundry before, have you, mister?”
“I don’t do trivial things like that.”
Anagin said it with absolute confidence and absolute shamelessness.
“I see why you ruined all the laundry… Anyway, what do you think? Isn't this enough to make it worth the trouble of having me as a companion?”
Her red lips curved into a confident smile—as if asking, Still think you don’t need me?
Anagin looked again at the piece of laundry she had washed.
No holes. No stains. Spotlessly clean.
“…Alright. I’ll take you as far as the village.”
“Yay!”
“So in return, you’re going to wash all that laundry over there.”
“Huh?”
The robed woman, who had just thrown her arms up in joy, froze and turned to stare at the mountain of laundry.
There was… a lot to wash.
“Right now? As in, this instant?”
“Yeah. Right now.”
Anagin nodded twice, firm and matter-of-fact. After all, he’d agreed to take her along precisely because she was good at laundry.
The robed woman let out a short laugh.
“This might take a while. What are you going to do in the meantime, mister?”
“I’m going to finish my meat and watch you wash while doing absolutely nothing.”
Anagin said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, waving the last piece of meat in his hand.
He had no trouble slaying beasts that ravaged the fields, but he couldn’t be bothered with tedious tasks like cooking, farming, foraging, or doing the laundry.
That was Anagin’s proud code of life.
“Got a problem with that?”
“None at all!”
Rolling up her sleeves, the robed woman reached toward the remaining pile of clothes.
A faint mutter escaped her lips—something that sounded like, “I really picked the wrong guy…”—but he decided to pretend he misheard.
* * *
[Stains, begone. Rub-rub—!
The robed woman did exactly as she said she would.
Chanting her song-like spell, she cleared the entire mountain of laundry in one go.
‘She’s got strength and stamina.’
Anagin thought as he watched her.
Despite her small build, she was surprisingly strong and tireless.
Magic made the clothes clean, but that didn’t mean it did all the work for her.
Magic was just support—it helped the laundry come out spotless, but it didn’t ‘wash’ it for her.
In other words, the labor it required stayed the same.
And as Anagin had learned earlier, washing clothes demanded a lot more strength and stamina than expected.
Considering that, it was clear the robed woman was far from ordinary in strength and stamina.
“Phew~! Hey, mister, do you have any kind of rope?”
“What for?”
“To hang the laundry, duh. You’re not planning to carry all this around wet, are you?”
Fair point.
Laundry wasn’t done just because it was washed. It had to be dried thoroughly and neatly folded before it could truly be called finished.
If it didn’t dry right, it would stink horribly, and then you’d have to start over.
Anagin pulled a rope out of his Interspatial Bag.
It was a short rope with a metal band around the middle—a magical tool he’d picked up from Deodia’s crew’s hideout, called the Infinite-Length Magic Rope.
“Looks too short to hang laundry.”
“Just wait.”
Anagin grabbed both ends of the rope and gave them a tug.
Creaaak.
Starting from the metal band at its center, the rope began to lengthen—as if a new section of rope were being created from thin air.
He tied one end to a tree, pulled the other end tight, and stretched it with all his strength.
Creaaak… crack…!
Just like that ponytail man had said, the more you stretched it, the stronger the resistance became.
Not that it really mattered.
Clinch!
Once Anagin tied the stretched rope to the tree on the opposite side, a makeshift clothesline appeared.
The robed woman, as if waiting for this moment, began hanging up the dripping laundry.
Drip. Drip.
Drops of water fell from the garments. It looked like it would take a full day to dry.
“Ugh, I hate waiting.”
“Won’t take that long, just be patient.”
When Anagin grumbled, the robed woman scolded him not to whine.
‘Maybe she knew a spell to dry them quickly?’
She walked over to the campfire, where only bones remained, and held her hand above the flames.
Fwoosh—!
The fire roared to life, and then she took a deep breath and blew gently—whoosh!
Following her breath, the heat surged across to the opposite side, sweeping through the clothesline and drying every garment in an instant.
“Soft and fluffy, right?”
The robed woman proudly held out the warm, freshly dried clothes to Anagin.
He touched them to check—fluffy, warm, perfectly dry.
“Nice.”
Anagin slipped on one of the clean garments, then stored the rest—along with the Infinite-Length Magic Rope—back into his Interspatial Bag.
Once he had packed everything, he slung the bag over his shoulder and looked at her.
“Got anything you need to bring?”
“Nope.”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
He’d promised, but Anagin said it so naturally—as if inviting her to travel together was the most obvious thing in the world.
He didn’t ask where she came from or what her name was.
And the robed woman simply followed beside him, without a word.
* * *
An unexpected companion—a mage.
At first glance, nothing much seemed to have changed. It was just one extra person.
However, this did affect Anagin’s journey to some extent. Naturally, their movement was slower.
There was a reason he had refused her offer to come along in the first place.
People all had different stamina and walking paces, and when traveling together, you naturally had to adjust to the slower one. The slow couldn’t possibly match the fast—that was just how it was.
That was exactly why Anagin had been reluctant to bring her along.
He had a Monster Merchant to hunt down—no time to slow his pace. If not for her laundry skills, he would’ve ignored her completely.
Still, to his surprise, the robed woman wasn’t as much of a burden as he’d expected.
Despite wearing a robe far too big for her frame, she moved deftly, matching his stride and pace with ease.
Thanks to that, Anagin could travel almost as freely as before, and before long, they’d left the deep forest and reached a path where people were beginning to appear here and there.
“Something’s going on up ahead?”
The robed woman, who had been silently walking beside him, lifted the hem of her robe slightly as she spoke.
Beneath it, her golden eyes gleamed as she looked toward a small crowd gathered in the distance.
Travelers and merchants seemed to be stopping, a bit of commotion brewing.
Or more precisely, someone had stopped them for inspection.
“Won’t take long, just cooperate a moment, please.”
As Anagin and the robed woman approached, they could hear the voices of men armed with swords and clubs.
They didn’t look like bandits—more like a local militia.
Probably a self-organized town watch, catching thieves who tried to sneak into the village.
They were stopping travelers, asking for their cooperation.
“Your daughter, you say?”
“Yes. And who might you be?”
“We’re from a nearby village. May we just have a look at your face for a moment?”
“What’s this about?”
“We are searching for a female thief who ran away. It will only take a moment, so please cooperate.”
The man who looked like the girl’s father frowned in irritation, but when a burly local glared at him, he hesitated.
He knew that causing trouble with local residents—Anapik—especially on the road, was a bad idea. There’d be no one to complain to if a fight broke out here.
In the end, he complied reluctantly.
“Thank you for cooperating.”
Just as they’d said, the militia didn’t cause any trouble—they checked the girl’s face and let them go.
The other travelers around them looked relieved. Everyone except the robed woman.
She seemed anxious, fidgeting and making a rustling sound as something moved around her hip area.
“You two as well, please cooperate.”
Before they knew it, the militia had come up to Anagin and the robed woman.
They’d likely repeated their explanation so many times that they didn’t bother this time—one reached out immediately to lift the woman’s hood.
But.
Clutch.
Anagin caught the man’s wrist midair, stopping him cold.
“? What do you think you’re doing?”
“What do ‘you’ think you’re doing?”
The militiaman scowled, but instead of flinching, Anagin stared him down, calm and sharp.
Something primal told them this man was no ordinary traveler.
One of the militiamen hurriedly spoke up.
“Ah… we’re searching for a thief—a woman who stole from the village and fled. Please cooperate, we only need to see her face.”
“It’s not us. Go check somewhere else.”
“What?”
“The only ones here are me and my companion. Don’t bother us and look elsewhere.”
“Hey! And why should we just take your word for it?”
The disbelief in the man’s voice was almost comical.
Anagin, too, found it absurd—but for different reasons.
“Then why should ‘I’ believe you? How do I know you’re really searching for a thief, and not bandits pretending to be guards? What exactly am I supposed to trust here?”
It was a genuine question—born of road-hardened logic.
Out on the open road, anyone you didn’t know was a potential threat.
And now these strangers were claiming to be chasing a thief—why should he believe that?
The unexpected reasoning left the men speechless for a moment.
Then one of them, face flushing red, snapped,
“If we were bandits, we’d have used force already!”
“That’s exactly why I’m not using force either. Want me to start?”
Anagin tightened his grip.
Crack.
Pain shot through the man’s wrist, and he screamed, collapsing to his knees.
“Ah! Aagh—! W-wait…! That hurts!!”
The so-called militiaman froze up, trembling.
Anagin released him immediately.
The man staggered back, clutching his wrist, glaring up at Anagin. Around him, his comrades tensed, drawing their weapons.
“Hold it!”
Just as they were about to swing, the man who seemed to be their captain barked an order, stopping them.
He’d seen Anagin’s strength and knew there was no winning here—a wise call.
At his gesture, the militia slowly backed away, parting to open the road.
Anagin strode forward through the gap, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“What are you doing? Not coming?”
He turned and looked at the robed woman.
* * *
As the sun set and darkness settled over the forest, Anagin stopped for the evening and sat down beneath a tree to rest.
The robed woman gathered a few dry branches, stacked them together, and snapped her fingers.
Ting—!
A spark flickered between her fingers, and the branches caught fire.
The campfire bathed the surroundings in a warm crimson glow—coloring both Anagin and the robed woman in shades of red.
“Here.”
Anagin tossed some food toward her.
Dried bread, fruit, and jerky—quite a generous portion.
“This is… a lot.”
“If you’re not gonna eat, hand it back.”
“That’s not what I meant…”
The robed woman tucked the food inside her robe, storing it just in case.
Anagin, on the other hand, began eating all of his at once—bread, fruit, and jerky together.
It was enough to last several days if rationed, but he didn’t care.
No matter how much he ate of this dried stuff, he was never full—so the only way to feel like he’d eaten anything was to finish it all.
“Isn’t that too much? You should probably save some.”
“I’ve got plenty. It’s fine.”
In truth, he did have quite a lot of rations.
He’d scavenged a good stash of preserved food from Bender’s Caravan and Deodia’s crew.
Their first meeting had been terrible, but looking back now, maybe they’d been decent folks after all—generous, even.
“Hmm… You’re thinking something scary again, aren’t you? Anyway, thanks for earlier.”
“What the hell are you talking about out of nowhere?”
“You really need to fix the way you talk, mister. You sound so rude all the time.”
“It’s fine to be rude to sneaky bastards.”
Twitch.
The robe around the woman gave a faint shudder.
“…You knew I was the thief they were looking for, didn’t you?”
“You’re a thief?”
Anagin looked her straight in the eye. The robed woman didn’t look away.
“…No.”
“Then what?”
“They were definitely chasing me… Don’t you want to know why?”
She sounded puzzled, as if she couldn’t understand how he wasn’t curious.
Normally, anyone would’ve wanted to know why a mage, or a lone woman wandering the woods, was being hunted. But Anagin clearly didn’t.
It wasn’t that he was pretending not to care—he truly didn’t.
“So what kind of bad thing did you do to get chased?”
“Hmm… Nothing. At least nothing I’m ashamed of. Let’s just say… a difference in opinion.”
“Then fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t care.”
“……”
“I’m just keeping my word. Laundry and the village. Got it?”
“That’s refreshingly honest.”
“Of course, what happens after that isn’t my concern.”
“I think you should talk less, too. You’re killing the gratitude I was feeling… but still, thanks.”
“No, you’ll want to save that, thanks for later.”
“?”
“Because we’ve got company.”
Anagin shoved the last of his rations into his mouth and turned his head.
The robed woman followed his gaze—and beyond the darkness, shapes began to emerge.
A group of people was approaching.
The pursuers had caught up.