"Barto, you..."
Before Gu Ning could finish, Barto switched off the bathroom light.
Her vision was plunged into darkness.
"Don’t talk."
Barto hurried to Gu Ning’s side and pulled her clothes from a bag hanging on a pipe. He reached into the tub for her. "Get dressed, quickly."
Gu Ning was confused. She didn’t have the night vision of a Beastman, nor could she fully grasp the urgency in Barto’s voice. When his hand touched her bare shoulder, she instinctively pushed it away.
"What’s wrong?" she asked.
Barto had no time to explain. He leaned over, wrapped an arm around her waist, and lifted her out of the water.
"Barto, what are you doing?!" Startled by his sudden action, Gu Ning repeatedly tried to push his hands away.
"You, don’t move!" Barto forced himself to avert his eyes and draped a towel over Gu Ning’s head.
CRASH!
The locked bathroom door was violently shoved open by an immense force, the iron door slamming against the wall with a loud bang.
Gu Ning and Barto both froze.
’What was that noise? Cook?’
A familiar presence made a bad feeling rise in her heart. She lifted the towel and looked toward the door.
A tall, brawny figure stood silhouetted against the light, his features obscured. But Gu Ning was all too familiar with his aura—an aggression so palpable, he looked like he’d chew out a passing dog for no reason.
She froze for two seconds before realizing other Beastmen had come to bathe.
’Wait...’
’Didn’t he say no one would be bathing at this hour?!’
Gu Ning wanted to grab Barto by the ear and demand to know if he could be reliable for once!
Seeing it was too late to get her out, Barto pushed her back into the water and submerged himself as well.
Gu Ning: "..."
FLICK!
The bathroom light was switched back on.
Vine’s gaze shot straight toward the... two Mixed Breeds in the bathroom.
Although one was covered by a towel and the other only showed their back, his past high-intensity training allowed him to accurately identify them as Mixed Breeds.
Besides, the scents in the air were not unfamiliar.
However, there seemed to be another... special scent.
Vine twitched his nose, his brow furrowing slightly. The scent was too faint, and the ridiculously fragrant body wash the two Mixed Breeds were using made it impossible for him to identify it immediately.
"Who the hell locks the door to bathe?"
"Don’t tell me it’s that pack of dogs trying to keep us from bathing..."
One by one, heads popped out from behind Vine, following his gaze to the shower stall in the middle of the right side of the bathroom.
"Whoa, look at that. They really know how to live it up."
The young wolves’ eyes went wide when they saw the large bathtub and the Mixed Breeds inside.
"WOOF WOOF WOOF!!!"
Cook, who had been blocked outside, burst through the pack of wolves at the door like a cannonball, charging toward Gu Ning and Barto.
The showerhead above them was still spraying hot water, and Gu Ning had just used body wash, covering the floor in suds. Cook’s feet slipped, and he couldn’t stop, plunging headfirst into the tub.
Gu Ning: "..."
Barto: "..."
Seeing the rather comical scene, the young wolves paused for a moment before bursting out laughing uncontrollably.
"Haha, what’s all this about?"
"Hey, who are those two Mixed Breeds? Isn’t one of them the one who’s always hanging around Cook?"
"The Dwarf hybrid who’s with him? And there was an atavistic fox, too."
"Who’s the redhead?"
"..."
"Woof?" Cook emerged from the water, shook his head dry, and nudged Gu Ning, who was nearly squished into a pancake by his bulk.
Gu Ning was pressed almost flat against the wall of the tub.
The tub, which had seemed ridiculously large for her, now had no extra space at all with two two-meter-tall Beastmen in it. She could even hear the tub creaking as if it were about to crack.
Barto, equally squashed and his face ashen, joined Gu Ning in pushing Cook out. "Cook, get out!"
Cook, also worried he might hurt Gu Ning, started to climb out of the tub.
Barto practically yanked him out by the fur on his back, but the big pup’s feet hit the slippery ground, and he went down again.
The young wolves roared with laughter again.
"You have ten minutes to wash. As soon as you’re done, go back and rest," Vine ordered, silencing the young wolves’ jeers.
The young wolves immediately shut up. Grabbing their towels, they rushed into the bathroom to find spots to wash, hauling Cook to his feet on their way in.
The empty, quiet bathroom instantly became noisy and crowded.
"GRR-WOOF!" Cook barked fiercely at the approaching young wolves and backed away, pressing his back tightly against the tub to shield Gu Ning.
The young wolves didn’t pay much mind to his attitude, merely casting curious glances at the large and small Mixed Breeds in the tub.
"What are you looking at?" Barto glared at the wolves. "Never seen someone take a bath in a tub before?"
A Wolf Beastman laughed. "Not with another Mixed Breed squeezed in there with them."