Celestina left shortly after it was decided Lucas would temporarily care for this fox cub, both because she had things to take care of and because her presence was clearly making the kit nervous.
After letting the fox finish her second helping of soup, Lucas gently picked her up. Fortunately, as a baby, she was still quite light so it wasn't any trouble for him to hold her with one arm.
The little fox, which had initially been wary of Lucas, soon curled up and snuggled into his chest, seemingly completely accepting him. Whether it was because he had fed her, or because he had 'protected' her from the scary Celestina, the fox cub now seemed to think of him as a friend.
Either that or she was full after having eaten so much and just wanted a comfortable place to nap.
Shaking his head at just how carefree this pup seemed, Lucas began wondering what he should do with her next. It was only after noticing the dirt and dust that was flaking off onto his clothes that Lucas mused aloud, "I guess I should give you a bath."
…..
Since the arrival of Celestina Balfour, the safe-zones had expanded quite a bit as the town's defence had become much more robust. This allowed people to spread out a bit and generally increased everyone's comfort, but most people were still crowded around a few centralized locations.
Without a wall surrounding the town, it was just too difficult to keep everyone safe once they dispersed too far.
Even so, with a bit more flexibility in available personnel, a few more locations were secured outside the original safe-zones, with the routes between them now being regularly patrolled by the town's defenders.
One of the new safe-zones was the large public bathhouse, which was fortuitously located in the south-east corner of town on the banks of the Belton tributary, away from the preferred routes of the Wild Beasts coming from the forest.
Considering the current crisis, Lucas had wanted to simply throw open the doors of the bathhouse and allow everyone to bathe there whenever they wanted, but despite multiple expansions, the facility simply couldn't handle that much traffic, so some restrictions were put in place.
There were 6 safe-zones in Redwood Town, housing roughly 6,000 people in total, while with proper water rationing, about 3,000 people could use the bathhouse per day. Given this reality, Lucas, Sasha, and Celestina, who was quite impressed with the bathhouse when it was first shown to her, split the safe-zones into two groups, allowing them to rotate to use the bathhouse.
It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was better than nothing.
As for the townsfolk and village refugees, most of them were simply happy they could use the bathhouse at all, with many people even volunteering to help stoke the furnaces or clean up the facility after it was used.
At Lucas' insistence, no one was charged to use the bathhouse during this time, and soap was even provided for free.
There were about 8,000 bars of soap stockpiled in Lucas' workshop, Many of these were in the process of curing, but they could still be used in a pinch. The townsfolk of Redwood Town also had several hundred bars of soap between them, so supply wasn't going to be an issue for at least a month or two.
Although this was technically costing Lucas and his investors a fortune in lost profits, none of them raised any objections under the circumstances.
As for why access to proper bathing facilities was made such a high priority, it was all to help prevent the risk of a plague breaking out.
The town's population had suddenly doubled and then been crammed into much tighter quarters than normal, together with a large quantity of farm animals.
On top of that, there were many wounded, with more being injured every day as Wild Beasts were being killed and their carcases being dragged through town to be buried away from the front-lines or simply tossed into the river.
Under such circumstances, the chances of someone catching some kind of disease, then that illness spreading rampantly throughout the population was several times higher than normal.
Encouraging people to remain as clean as possible just made good sense.
Far fewer cases of serious illness had occurred ever since cheap bathing with soap was introduced to Redwood Town a few months ago, so Sasha, Charles, and Lucas were all more than willing to suffer a bit of financial loss if it meant decreasing the risk of an outbreak.
Besides, compared to the other losses they were taking, this bit of lost cash was practically meaningless.
All this was to say that from sunup to sunset, the bathhouse in Redwood Town was constantly guarded and occupied, its waterwheels turning non-stop as smoke from its furnaces billowed into the sky.
Now, this all might make it seem like Lucas was behaving completely selflessly, willing to contribute everything he had for free, but that wasn't exactly true.
While thousands of people had to share the town's public bathhouse, the private bathhouse that Lucas, his parents, and the Newton Family had dumped a couple hundred Gold into building at the Town Lord's Manor was still reserved for them and their closest associates.
Carrying the fox pup with him, Lucas quickly arrived at the private bathhouse and couldn't help grinning slightly at the sight.
This was, without a doubt, his proudest achievement so far, though it was still somewhat incomplete.
Built in a remote corner of the Town Lord's Manor, this 25-square-metres elevated structure had multiple features that weren't available in the public bathhouse.
The most important of these features, however, was the massive water tanks that were built on the rear roof of the building, one which stored 1,500 litres of water, and the other which stored 500 litres.
Below the smaller water tank was a furnace that, when properly stoked, could heat the water above to a near boil in just over half-an-hour.
Both of these storage tanks were fed by pumps from the nearby well.
These pumps had to be operated manually from a raised platform because Lucas hadn't figured out a way to automate the process yet, but that was just a minor inconvenience as far as the boy was concerned.
A system of pipes then allowed water from the two raised tanks to flow into the bathhouse and supply 5 shower stalls with on-demand, running hot and cold water.
When this private bathhouse was finally finished, everyone who watched Lucas demonstrate its use was blown away, and after they used it for the first time, they all heaped praise onto him for his invention.
Drake, who was heavily involved in this innovative bathhouse's construction, was particularly inspired by some of the things Lucas had shown him were possible.
Smithing the pipes and designing faucets to control the waterflow had been a real headache for Lucas and his father, as the boy's inherited memories only provided examples of finished products, but no real explanations for how they were made. It was only after multiple experiments and failures that the father and son pair managed to create a working solution.
Of course, there were still some issues with this new bathhouse that needed to be worked out, drainage being a big one.
As one could imagine, there was no town-wide sewage system in Redwood Town, so disposing of wastewater from the bathhouse wasn't easy. This water couldn't just be dumped out into the field either as the soap in it was toxic to plants in high concentrations.
Lucas had originally planned to dig a drainage channel all the way from the Manor to the Belton, but that project had been put on hold due to a number of complications.
In the end, he could only use a stopgap measure, draining the water from the showers into a portable tank on the back of a wagon, then hauling it away every few days.
Even with this added step, however, the showers at the Town Lord's Manor were incredibly popular amongst those who had the privilege to use them.
In fact, since it opened, Anna, Sasha, Eris, Helen, Grace, and several other women who worked at the Manor had basically used it every single day, sometimes even kicking the men out and forcing them to go to the public bathhouse instead.
The injustice of it all grated Lucas greatly, but facing the unified front presented by the various women in their lives, the boy, his father, his uncle, and the other men had little choice but to compromise.
Lucas' access to his own special bathhouse further decreased with the arrival of his new Master, who after experiencing the showers for herself, had extracted a promise from her First Disciple to have such a facility installed in all her own homes in Misty City and Martin once this crisis was resolved.
Ever the entrepreneur, Lucas began wondering if he could make a business out of installing showers in rich nobles' homes, but right now it was just a casual idea, something to be considered further down the road.
A more immediate concern for Lucas was whether the private bathhouse he had set up at great cost, mainly for his own comfort, was going to be available for him to use right now.
On the way over from the parking lot, Lucas had high hopes as it was already quite late at night, and normally the bathhouse wasn't occupied at this late an hour. He might need to re-stoke the furnace or top up the water tanks, but as long as he could use the showers, Lucas felt all that effort would be worth it.
Unfortunately, upon checking the sign out front, Lucas' smiled faltered as he noticed it said 'occupied'.
Worse yet, it also said 'female'.
If it had been another man inside, Lucas wouldn't have hesitated to go on in, but since there were women showering right now, it seemed he and the fox kit would just have to wait.