"Then why?"
According to my understanding, exceptional ability is the most important thing for a servant, but perhaps the virtual world has different evaluation standards.
Hohenheim pushed up his glasses again. Next time I see him, I should count how many times he does this—it would be quite interesting.
"Anna-chan... probably doesn't know about the inside story of bathhouse services."
"Bathhouse? I'm not very familiar with bathhouses... what about them?"
Rothschild is a small village, so there's no bathhouse. Generally speaking, only towns prosperous enough to have baron-level castles are sufficiently wealthy to sustain a bathhouse's income. Bathhouses have female workers who are specifically responsible for scrubbing and massage. Personally, I'm not very comfortable with the bathhouse atmosphere. Even after becoming a girl, I have no desire to go to women's bathhouses.
"Bathhouse services include more than just what's on the surface. Since Anna-chan is a girl, it's normal that you wouldn't know. At bathhouses, if you give the proprietress extra money, she allows age-restricted services with the bathhouse's female workers."
"Eh?!"
No way... the game actually has this kind of setting?
"That... that's not publicly..."
"There are many restrictions. In our world, whether age-restricted services are legal has never achieved global consensus. Before we came to Lemoria Continent, the higher-ups spent a long time discussing human rights issues for virtual characters."
Just saying "virtual world" would be understandable to me, too.
"The final decision was to allow controlled, appropriate openness for easier management."
"Easier management... meaning frequency restrictions?"
"Much more troublesome than simple frequency restrictions, but we adventurers don't have free access to seek such services. Problems that are difficult to eradicate—corrupting social morals, breeding drugs, rampant sexual diseases—are all controllable factors on Lemoria Continent. So bathhouse age-restricted services have always existed and are open to us adventurers."
This is somewhat unexpected.
I previously didn't pay much attention to virtual online games and knew nothing about their evolution.
I can understand what Hohenheim is saying. From ancient times to now, people worldwide have indeed never reached a consensus. In other words, the open rights of virtual online games are based on the foundation that virtual game worlds can directly eliminate factors like sexual diseases and drugs, plus age, frequency, and other restrictions that have evolved with the times to the current situation.
"The game has age-restriction-related skills, and adventurers often discuss which girl at which bathhouse is more popular."
Right, when [Bed Service] skills and age restriction switches appeared, I should have realized that Lemoria is a continent that constantly jumps between wholesome and age-restricted content.
"—However, these so-called restrictions only apply to finding girls at bathhouses."
Hohenheim's tone shifted.
"When both parties are willing and agree to turn on the age restriction switch, there are no frequency limitations. Between adventurer and adventurer, between adventurer and ordinary village girl, between adventurer and noble lady... there are no restrictions. One guy even became a baron by seducing noble ladies. Damn, normies are normies everywhere."
The corner of my mouth couldn't help but twitch. When games have high freedom, do players particularly like pulling off weird operations?
But speaking of this, I think I understand what Hohenheim means.
"Between adventurers and followers, there are similarly no restrictions. They would probably make willful requests to Anna-chan, such as, 'I want a cup of milk tea, hold the tea.' What they value about Anna-chan is precisely..." (TN: They want her milk.)
"..."
I reflexively covered my chest.
I see. I lack that kind of self-awareness for self-protection as a girl.
I used to serve a female master as a man, but now the gender positions might be completely reversed. Just by reversing gender positions, the things I need to consider have suddenly become much more complex.
The real world doesn't have beautiful girlmaids willing to dedicate everything to their master. Is projecting unrealistic beautiful fantasies onto the virtual world—that is, onto Anastasia—the true feelings of many players?
Only now do I realize that Chris's advice wasn't alarmist.
"Ahem, not all adventurers have such motivations."
Seeing me become vigilant, Hohenheim hurriedly defended the adventurers, probably not wanting me to generalize.
"At least Texas and Enrique definitely aren't like that—though they absolutely have other schemes. Don't be afraid, Anna-chan. No matter who bullies Anna-chan, we absolutely won't let them get away with it. When we transformed from [Golden Dawn] into Anna's Support Group, our leader made a declaration. There are only two requirements for joining: first, to like Anna-chan; second, to forever protect Anna-chan's happiness. No matter when or where Anna's Support Group's doors will always be open for Anna-chan."
I didn't expect that leader who went to jail for sexual harassment to say such cool things.
It's precisely because of these two principles Hohenheim mentioned that they stood up yesterday when I was surrounded by adventurers.
However, most players probably just see me as an NPC. Perhaps, in their eyes, Anastasia's existence is merely a collection of data. Things like happiness are too distant from me, even more unreachable than the stars hanging in the sky.
I'm once again convinced that although Anna's Support Group has various subtle reputations and the players gathered within are all strange, I still can't possibly dislike them.
"Yes. Thank you all."
I'm sincerely grateful for their support.
[Anastasia's affection toward "Anna's Support Group" collective +5]
...But the organization's name is really so embarrassing! Can't you change the name back to [Golden Dawn]?!