Chapter 1: Time for a Property Viewing, or So It Was Told

“We’re going… to look at a house… that we might call home?”

The light faded from Shion’s eyes. She stared at Renya with the look of someone who had just been plunged into the depths of despair. It was as if Hell itself had been loosed upon the world, and she was witnessing it firsthand. She visibly deflated as she leaned backward and slumped into her chair. Renya tilted his head to the side, wondering just what part of his announcement had been so utterly soul-crushing.

“The place has, uh… a bit of history, so we’re going to stay there for a night and check it out. Is there… something wrong?”

“I see… This day… came so fast…”

The sight of Shion hanging her head and murmuring into the ground was baffling to him. At a complete loss as to what to do, he turned his attention to Rona, who watched the proceedings in the seat beside Shion and made no attempt to involve herself. With evening approaching, there would soon be an influx of people looking to eat dinner. More people meant more eyes, and he didn’t want weird rumors popping up about how he made a girl at his table act like her world just ended.

“Hey, you have any idea why she’s like this?”

“Don’t you have an inkling?” Rona questioned him back. In response, he tried searching through his memories, but nothing came to mind.

“Nope. Sorry, I’ve got nothing.”

“Shion’s worried that now that you’ve bought your home, you’re going to disband the party.”

With Rona’s tip, the pieces in his mind finally fell into place. When Shion had first asked him to join her party, he accepted and told her it was because he needed money to buy a permanent place to reside. At the time, she suggested that if they bought a home, the whole party could live there together, but he put off the matter, claiming they could discuss it when the time came. Apparently, Shion had been thinking that if they lived together, then she could keep the party together after he acquired a place to stay. Thanks to him shelving the discussion for later, however, he instilled in her the concern that he would leave the party once the time came.

“Since when did she take to me so much? I have no recollection of this ever happening.”

“Well, let’s see. You’re a veritable one-man army, you can cook, you have a decent personality, and you look all right. You care about your friends, and if they need money, you might as well be a walking coin purse to them. I’m pretty sure that puts you squarely in the eligible bachelor zone. In fact, can I get in on the action, too? You can have both of us for the price of one,” said Rona, her casual tone at complete odds with the sheer lunacy of what she just proposed.

“You’re not stray kittens, damn it,” answered Renya with a grimace. “I’m not going to just pick you up and take you home, okay? Also, I’m pretty sure I already said I’m all about the money.”

“Oh, yes, of course. You certainly demonstrated that when you gave half your bounty to Azu without batting an eye.”

“That was… totally justified! Azu was entitled to—”

“Objection. At the time, Azu’s party was officially entitled to only 12 gold. The remaining 38 was comprised of exactly half the reward for the core’s destruction, the profits from its sale, and the payment for assisting the guild. All your earnings, Renya.”

He had no answer to Rona’s sharp retort. There was no doubt that normally, it was only sensible for him to share the earnings with his own party members, Shion and Rona. Though it was an act of sympathy, he couldn’t deny that he felt a little guilty about giving away half their reward to Azu’s party. Words failed him, and as he awkwardly fumbled for a response, Rona grinned.

“There’s nothing wrong with being generous with your money; that’s a good thing. And it’s not like I’m scolding you, so cheer up already. Now, let’s move on to more important matters, like doing something about her.” She pointed at Shion, who did not seem to hear a word they said. “I trust you know what to say?”

Would there ever be a day when he managed to take a point off this woman? He wasn’t really sure. With such thoughts swirling in the back of his mind, he turned to Shion and said to her what he hoped was the correct answer to Rona’s question.

“It’s the place our party’s going to call home. Since we’re all going to be living there together, do you want to come take a look as well, Shion?”

“Huh?”

Shion looked up at him with empty, lifeless eyes. They wandered a little before settling in his direction. A period of silence ensued, during which the meaning of his words slowly sank in. Then, color returned to her face and her dead eyes flared back to life.

“Live… together… R-Right, of course. It’s where our party’s going to call home, after all.”

“Yeah, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to go alone. You should come along. Do you have some time? I’m going there right after this.”

“No problem. I have time. I’ll make time. We’re leaving soon, right? Since we’re staying a night, I’ll go prepare my things. Wait for me.”

She leapt to her feet and dashed off toward her room to pack her luggage. He watched her giddy form disappear into a doorway, noting that the despondent, empty-husk-of-a-human Shion he saw moments before had all but disappeared. Now, she gave him the distinct impression of — an impolite thought, certainly — a puppy about to be taken on a walk.

“What about you, Rona? I assume ghosts and stuff fall under the specialty of the priesthood.”

“As long as you’re there, it’ll probably be fine. I find the thought of staying a night at an abandoned house extremely unappealing, so count me out,” she said, looking away with a hmph.

Renya narrowed his eyes and kept them trained on the side of her face. She glanced back in his direction and, when she saw him staring, hurriedly looked away again.

“What’re you scheming?”

“Nothing… On a completely unrelated note, you know how they say a man and a woman are more likely to have feelings for each other when they’re standing on a suspension bridge or a battlefield? Do you believe that?”

“Damn it, what’re you getting at? Hey, stop turning away! Look at my eyes when you talk!”

He grabbed her shoulders and tried to get her to turn around and face him, but she adamantly refused, craning her neck as far as she could the other way. Their tussle continued all the way until Shion came back with her set of sleeping gear.

Rona never did look him in the eyes.

“A night with Renya… Just the two of us. I like where this is going,” Shion said to herself quietly.

Renya and Shion were making their way toward the storied property. Rona had refused to come, and Renya didn’t know where anything was in Kukrika, so Shion naturally took the lead on their journey. Shion did not don her usual battle wear; instead, she was dressed in men’s clothes that were navy blue from top to bottom. When Renya asked why she wasn’t wearing something like a skirt, she curtly replied, “Because it doesn’t suit me.”

She had brought a longsword for insurance, but she was otherwise lightly equipped, carrying only a sleeping bag and a pouch that held her personal effects. As for Renya, he also had no intention of gearing up just to check out a property in town, so he wore a brown top and brown bottom fixed by a sword belt with the katana attached. He had stuffed all the other luggage into his inventory beforehand, so matters of food and sleep were already taken care of.

“It should be somewhere around here…” murmured Shion as she came to a stop, her eyes still on the map they got from the real estate office. “Maybe it’s… that?”

She pointed at a tall fence, beyond which they could see the corner of a building. As they approached for a better look, the structure gradually came into view, dimly lit by the fading evening sun. The surrounding fence, so tall that they needed to tilt their heads back to see the top, was covered by myriad dark forms, long and snakelike. On closer inspection, it was revealed that they were the vines of some unknown plant, which had grown so dense that they hid the fence itself from view. The gate at the entrance, long since untended, was in a state of rusty disrepair. Renya inserted the key from the real estate office into the lock and pushed. Slowly, the gate swung inwards, grating noisily against the ground the whole way.

A cobblestone path led from the gate, flanked by the garden on both sides. Long years of neglect had taken their toll here as well, as weeds grew wildly throughout and filled the space with a vibrant but messy collage of green. Trees dotted the lot. What might once have been proud displays of well-pruned beauty now stood strong and untamed. Their long branches grew freely and haphazardly, unimpeded by the will of man.

“This… looks like it’s going to take some work before anybody can move in.”

“Well, it comes with the price, I guess.”

Renya sighed. The outside being in such terrible shape suggested that the inside would fare little better. Purchasing the house and land was only the beginning. This place was going to need a lot of repairs and renovation before it was habitable, and that was going to chew through a lot more money. It was clear that he wasn’t going to be living the high life after buying the house; he was going to be working his ass off trying to make more money. Shion seemed to share his thoughts, but contrary to his gloomy expression, she wore a look of sheer glee.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not basing my decision to keep the party together on the amount of work this repair job is going to take.”

“I never said you did.”

“Huh… All right, then.”

After trading a few quips, the two found themselves standing at the entrance to the house. The door before them was thick and solid. He took out the key to the house, pushed it into the lock, and twisted. The lock opened with a heavy clank, and the door slowly creaked open. Once they walked through the doorway, neither of them were surprised to find the inside shrouded in darkness. There were no lamps, and the dim evening glow barely even lit the windows it passed through. A vast and unsettling emptiness stretched out before them. Shion couldn’t help but lean in and pull on Renya’s shoulder.

“It’s… pretty dark.”

“Well, yeah. Because there are no lights. Hold on a second.”

He gave the hand on his shoulder a few reassuring pats before stepping into that emptiness. Then, he raised his right hand and gave it a quick flick.

“Illuminate.”

Orbs of mana flickered to life in the murky darkness, glowing with an intense, but heatless white light. There were a total of sixteen, and they bathed the area in their radiance, revealing it to be an entrance hall.

“I set their duration to twelve hours. It’s probably fine for the entrance to stay bright until tomorrow morning.”

“Hm, right.”

Shion agreed with a nod. It seemed perfectly reasonable, but that was only because she had no knowledge of magecraft. Otherwise, she should have been gaping at the ridiculously unusual sight before her.

The amount of mana expended by magecraft correlated with the spell’s strength and duration of action, and it was possible to calculate through simple multiplication. Orbs generated by Illuminate only lasted for about ten minutes. He had queued up twelve hours’ worth. Moreover, he had sixteen instances of this going at the same time. Six times twelve times sixteen equals one thousand one hundred and fifty-two. In other words, with a flick of his hand, he just burned through enough mana to cast a normal Illuminate 1152 times.

The sheer mana consumption would have easily knocked a regular mage out cold. Were Azu or Caryl present, the sight would have blown their minds. Unfortunately, its significance was lost on Shion, who knew less than nothing about such things. The extent of her appreciation for his extraordinary feat was “Well, I’m glad it’s bright now.” Renya did not feel like it was anything to boast about either, so the specifics ultimately went unexplained.

Ample illumination revealed the entrance hall to be built in a wellhole style that joined the first and second floors, and the staircase to the second was directly in front of them. A number of rooms surrounded them on the first floor, and they turned out to be a guest room, a dining room with kitchen attached, a storehouse, another storehouse, and a workshop. The section that faced the street was the storefront. Apparently, the storefront and workshop each claimed one of the storehouses for themselves.

Up on the second floor, there were three bedrooms, a large bathroom, a study, a living room, and a children’s bedroom. The third floor was the attic, and it seemed to have been used as a glorified closet.

Renya proceeded to spam twelve-hour Illuminates throughout the house, putting orbs up in every room he entered. Only the bedrooms were spared. In the end, almost every corner of the building was aglow and the whole place was bright as day. Each orb he created cost 72 times more mana than usual, and he was throwing them out like they were chump change. At this point, even the magecraft-challenged Shion started noticing that something seemed strange.

“Hey, Renya, how come you’re putting up light orbs everywhere?”

“Hm? Oh, I guess I didn’t tell you.” He scratched his head and grimaced a little, figuring he probably should have explained beforehand. “Apparently, this house is haunted. Like, people see ghosts around here.”

“…Huh?”

“There’s some story about how the merchant who used to own this place turned out to be a serial killer. And it’s said that ghosts show up here. Speaking of which, I forgot to ask what kind of ghosts they are… Those of the murdered? Or is it the ghost of that merchant who was beheaded in the yard? I mean, I don’t really care either way, but will they still come out if it’s this bright?”

“Gho… Ghosts?”

“Yeah. What about them?”

A glance at Shion revealed that she was slowly drawing in a breath. He had a pretty good idea what she was going to do next, so he stuck his fingers in his ears and grit his teeth.

For the briefest of moments, there was nothing. Then, it came.

The world itself seemed to tremble amidst the piercing scream. It emanated from Shion, passed through the walls, and echoed throughout the entire property before fading into the night sky.

“Nope! Nope nope nope nope nope! No way! Come on, Renya, can we leave? Please…”

She clutched at his right shoulder with both hands and looked up at him with wide, desperate eyes. With all the pitifulness of a lost child, she clung onto him, her hands trembling and her eyes moist. It was a sight that would have tugged at the heartstrings of anyone who called himself male, but Renya was too distracted trying to pry off the iron grip of her hand that was currently threatening to crush his shoulder and therefore took little notice.

“Please, can we go already? Why are we staying the night in a place where ghosts show up…”

“That’s the whole point. I said we’re here to check this place out, didn’t I? Being ghosts, they probably only come out at night, so how else are we supposed to see them? We have to be here when it’s night. If you want to leave, you can just go back to the inn by yourself.”

“How am I supposed walk alone at night after hearing a story like that, you monster!” she exclaimed in a fit of desperate, dread-fueled rage.

Immediately, he started regretting bringing her along. With that said, though, he was partly to blame for not explaining the situation to her beforehand, so he couldn’t scold her outright. He was also surprised by how poorly Shion handled things like ghosts and tales of the paranormal. They had, after all, ventured into a dungeon and stared down zombies whose flesh was literally melting off their bodies. Those seemed many times scarier in both appearance and potential threat compared to ghosts, which might or might not exist — they weren’t even sure yet. When he brought up the issue with her, her reply was swift and firm.

“Because you can’t stab a ghost with a sword, obviously!”

In his mind, Renya opened the file where he kept his opinions of the people he knew, flipped to Shion’s page, and under the entry that read, “A few cards short of a full deck,” added another line: “Failed physics.” Then, he proceeded to explore the rest of the house with an unwilling Shion in tow, who pulled on his sleeve like her very life depended on it and loudly pleaded with him to leave.

The entrance to the first floor was opposite the storefront, which faced the street. One of the two storehouses could only be entered from the side of the store, and access to the other was similarly restricted to the adjoining workshop. The layout of the guest room remained the same as when it was last inhabited, but below the thick layer of dust and grime that had accumulated over the years, its furnishings lay decayed and worm-eaten. Though it might be cheaper to clean and restore them to their original state, he decided that it was simply easier to dispose of everything and start over with newly-purchased furniture. The same could be said of the dining room and the assortment of cookware that had been left behind; he wasn’t keen on reusing hand-me-downs from a convicted serial killer. As for the kitchen, it was equipped with a number of contraptions, each of which was rigged with a dizzying assortment of mana crafts that were sure to fetch a handsome price on the market. According to Shion, with a sufficient supply of manastones, they would allow him to produce both water and fire with the flick of a finger, even going so far as to control their intensity at will. It elicited an impressed nod from Renya, who noted that this world was conveniently high-tech in the strangest of places sometimes.

He stepped into the workshop and discovered that it was no slouch either. A furnace that ran on mana stones could be used for smithery, and the surrounding cupboards and cabinets provided plenty of storage space for medicines and materials. Heavy-duty work counters rounded off the setup, and the whole place was, barring some cleaning that had to be done, in perfect working condition.

“You think… somebody was killed on this work counter?” asked Shion, her voice tinged with dread. The counter was indeed wide enough for a person to lie down on it, but he shook his head.

“That seems unlikely. If the guy actually did something like that, I’ll be sure to give his ghost a good scolding when it shows up.”

The work counter was a hallowed place; it was where a craftsman went about his craft. Those who would desecrate such a space with unseemly acts would receive no mercy from him.

“…Can you even scold a ghost?”

“No idea. It’s not like I’ve tried before.”

Up on the second floor, there were three bedrooms. They were used by the merchant and his wife, their children, and any potential guests, respectively. The furniture and beds in these rooms were likewise untouched, but he didn’t want to keep stuff that had been used by other people. They were pretty dirty too, so he flagged everything as garbage.

An expansive bathroom held a luxurious bathtub made of marble. As expected, it employed a water-delivery system that was powered by mana stones, and it even had a shower attached. Despite the long period of neglect, the system remained in very good condition.

“It’s nice that the bathtub is big. We can all get in together,” said Shion as she peeked out from behind him.

“Yeah. Except we’re not going to do that.”

She was still clinging to him as if she were hiding from something, but the sight of the bathtub set her eyes aflame.

“Really? You don’t want to catch a glimpse of Rona in the bath? Just so you know, they’re an eyeful normally, but they’re even more of an eyeful when they’re wet.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m pretty sure I value my life and sanity more.”

While he was fairly certain that she wouldn’t make much of a fuss even if he did engage in acts of voyeurism, he was also fairly certain that she would use that fact to her advantage in other ways.

“Wh-What about mine? I’m actually pretty proud of them, personally…”

“Okay, one of these days, we’re going to have to sit you down, and we’re going to have to talk about expectations,” he said, exasperated but not oblivious to the fact that her neatly-tied hair afforded him a generous and not-entirely-unprovocative view of her rose-hued skin. Her lips curved into a sly grin. He sighed; the thought must have shown on his face.

The two of them circled through the remaining rooms: the study, the living room, and the children’s room. These, however, had nothing of note. None of the remaining furnishings were in a state suitable for continued use, and the study was in such bad shape that most of its contents — books, for example — were entirely gone.

After making the rounds through the inside of the house, Renya went to the garden and began to cut away weeds. Eventually, he cleared out enough space to make dinner. He could have used the equipment in the kitchen, but it technically didn’t belong to him yet. Also, neither he nor Shion had the necessary manastones on them. Naturally, preparing dinner would then require them to start a fire themselves, and that had to be done outside.

After producing some firewood from his inventory and putting it in a pile, Shion lit them with a spell. Once the embers grew large enough, he placed a shallow fry pan on top. Then, he took wheat flour and a powder made by crushing some sort of dried corn-like crop, mixed them in water, and poured it onto the pan. As he cooked it, it became something that resembled a thin flatbread. He repeated the process a few more times, producing a couple more pieces, before dripping some oil onto the same pan and throwing in a bundle of vegetables and bite-sized meat. As he stir-fried these, he sprinkled in salt, alcohol, and a dab of honey. Had he some sesame oil and soy sauce and mirin cooking wine, it would have really brought out the yakiniku flavor, but alas, it was an empty hope. He consoled himself with the thought that he would eventually figure out a way to make his own. Once the contents of the pan had been thoroughly fried, he split it into two large plates, which already held some leafy greens that he had washed with water in advance. Finally, he put the greens on the flatbread, added his stir-fried meat dish on top, and rolled it all into a wrap. Complementing this was a plate of mustard — to be added as one saw fit — and some light wine. Most of the flavor would come from the stuffing, which was heavier in seasoning than usual to offset the fact that it would be wrapped with greens in flatbread.

Shion mimicked his steps and was soon holding her own stuffing-filled wrap. As she leaned in to take a bite, she gave a heartfelt comment.

“You really don’t skimp out when it comes to food, do you Renya?”

In general, adventurers did not cook while they were on the move. It was true that they preferred carrying less luggage. It was also true that few of them knew how to cook in the first place. A bag of salt and a spit was what passed for cooking in most parties, and most would never even think of attempting to boil, fry, or steam their food. Shion, like all the other adventurers, was clueless when it came to cooking and had naturally gotten used to foods that were simple to prepare and quick to eat. That, however, had changed.

“After being around you for a while, I don’t think I can go back to living like before,” she said as she held the wrap in both hands and politely nibbled at it. In the light of the fire, faint shadows dancing across tender cheeks, her smile seemed a touch forlorn.

Renya opened his mouth to respond, but no words came. He gaped awkwardly for a second before remembering the wrap in his hand. He turned to it and took a bite; it gave his mouth something to do. The sight amused Shion and the shadow vanished from her smile. She began to laugh, thinking her comment had embarrassed him, but suddenly flinched. Her smile stiffened. Then, her face rapidly paled.

“What’s the matter?” Renya asked, quickly realizing that something was wrong.

“Did someone… just laugh?”

He had cooked outside, so they ate outside as well. Seeing that neither of them wanted to sit on the ground, he had brought out some chairs, which they were sitting in right now. All was quiet. No one seemed to be near. Other than the house itself, their only company were the rampant weeds scattered throughout the garden.

“Are you sure you weren’t just hearing things?”

“I don’t know… but it really did sound like someone la—”

A laugh. They both heard it this time. It was the voice of a young girl, thin but sinister.

All the color drained from Shion’s face. Renya cautiously scanned the surroundings. There was no wind, no fluttering of leaves or grasses, no sound at all, save for the slow, rolling laughter of a young girl’s voice that echoed in the otherwise silent garden.

“Re-Renya…”

“Geez, don’t start whimpering.”

The laugh grew louder and louder as it turned into a maniacal cackle. Shion, who looked like she was mere moments away from breaking into a wailing sob, leapt toward Renya and clung to his left arm. Despite her frantic scramble, however, she did not drop the wrap in her hand. Surprised that she managed such a feat, he gave her a pat of approval, then wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her in to reassure her.

“It’s here, Renya! The ghost! The ghost is here!”

She had a death grip on his shoulder and was shaking his arm with all her strength, but there was too much difference in either their strength or their body weight; despite her furious shaking, he stood perfectly still, not budging an inch. It was like a kitten thrashing against a giant tree.

“Hmmm? I guess it does sound like one…” he murmured in a perfectly level voice amidst a violent cacophony of sound and motion. There was hysterical laughter in his ears and a flailing Shion in his arm. “But all it’s doing is laughing. At this rate, it’ll just be a really noisy nuisance.”

His words entered Shion’s ears and did a couple of laps inside her head before she finally parsed what they meant.

“Huh?”

Shion stopped desperately pressing her face against his shoulder and, with an expression of disbelief, looked up at him. He stared back at her. With his right hand, he threw the last little bit of his wrap into his mouth and munched on it ever so slowly. He kept staring at her for a little longer, wondering what it was he said that baffled her so much, before continuing.

“I mean, to be fair, it is going to be hell trying to sleep through this at night, so we probably need to do something about it, but it’s basically harmless otherwise, right?”

Once he declared the ghost to be the equivalent of a particularly noisy neighbor, the laughing stopped. Maybe it heard what he said. At the same time, swishing sounds came from all around the garden. Soon after, they were assaulted by a barrage of debris that hurtled through the air. He drew his katana with his right hand — his left was still holding Shion, and she had her eyes firmly shut — and slapped down the flying objects with the back of his blade.

“So, first it laughs up a storm. Then, it starts chucking stones? What did they call these again? Poltergeists or something?”

The objects he knocked down rolled along the ground a few times before coming to a stop and revealing themselves to be the same small stones that were scattered here and there in the garden. They were neither special nor particularly threatening.

“All right. What’s next?” he said as he shot a questioning glance at a patch of tall weeds.

A number of pale white figures appeared, ghostly forms wavering as they rose up through the grass. Their shifting faces were hazy and indistinct. One of them emitted a moaning wail that dripped with malice for the living.

Then, its head promptly burst into a cloud of ethereal fragments and disintegrated. In its place was the cusp of a silver blade that glinted in the darkness. Beyond its hilt was Renya’s outstretched right arm. In his left was Shion, whose eyes remained stubbornly closed. Even with her body in tow, however, the speed of his dash was unhampered. This was especially impressive, considering he was walking on the garden’s untended earth. Normally, a person’s legs would almost certainly have gotten tangled in the swirling tendrils of weeds.

“Well. So much for ‘you can’t stab a ghost with a sword,’” he uttered in a somewhat disappointed tone, showing absolutely no interest in the glowing white form that was melting into the air. If anything, he was more interested in what he held in his arm. After taking a moment to appreciate the soft aroma that drifted from Shion’s body along with the sensation of her rubbing against his left side, he turned to the countless ghostly forms that had appeared and brandished his katana at them.

“Well then, since we’re here to do some cleaning, might as well start by taking out the trash!”

Shion was not exactly short, and she had a reasonably well-built frame with a good amount of muscle. Nevertheless, Renya could hoist her up to his side with his left arm without much effort at all. Part of the reason might have been the fact that she was carrying nothing but a longsword. In any case, it was a stroke of luck for him that she wasn’t wearing armor, because with each swing, step, and turn, various parts of their bodies came into rather intimate contact with each other. To put it more specifically, breasts were touched, midriffs were brushed, and hips were nudged. A kaleidoscope of sensations were his to enjoy, and enjoy them he did. How glad he was that Rona wasn’t present; with no need to worry about witnesses, he could indulge to his heart’s content.

Fortunately, the fight took place in the garden, which offered ample room for movement. He could run, jump, and spin without minding his surroundings. Taking full advantage of his freedom, he filled the entirety of the garden’s vast space with his presence. The pale human forms never even managed to utter a peep. Those he dashed past were sundered in two from shoulder to waist. Those in his way were skewered in rows. Others lost their heads before being parted down the middle. Yet more simply dissipated where they stood, sliced into too many pieces to count. Chaos ruled the garden that night, playing out its entropic symphony of violence. Every passing measure was punctuated by the scattering of more ethereal forms.

If they were the souls of the women who were murdered here — vengeful spirits shackled to this ground — they surely would have bemoaned their choice to show themselves this night. If they were the merchant who was beheaded here — fragmented remnants of his accursed soul — he surely would have questioned whether he sinned so deeply to justify such a cruel fate. Renya, however, neither knew nor cared what they were. He had but one sole goal: to cut them all down.

“Oh, man… this isn’t good…”

He blindly swung his arms this way and that, hewing down whatever they touched. Both blade and Shion twirled through the air. Then he stopped, cast his head back, and sent a bout of howling laughter up into the night sky.

“Why, I do believe we have a problem.”

Renya thought he heard the shrill twangs of muscles all through his body, their fibers stressed to their limit. They cried out in agony, protesting their abuse. It was the sound of reform. The sound of creation; he was making himself anew. He felt as though his tissues, once enfeebled by the crippling comfort of tranquility, were hardening into new ones, colder and stiffer than ever before.

“Swinging a blade to my heart’s content…”

Unwittingly, the corners of his lips curled upwards. Color disappeared from his world. With visual clutter removed, his eyes saw even more clearly. There were still plenty of foes. Plenty of prey. Every stroke of his katana brought with it a rush.

“…is just… too much fun!”

An ecstatic surge of adrenaline threatened to consume him, but he snapped out of it just before it took hold. There were two reasons for this. The first was that Shion, who still resided in his left arm, uttered a soft moan of agony. Apparently, he had been holding her too tightly; his arm pressed against her so forcefully that she was struggling to breathe. The second was that he heard a faint scream from inside the house. As far as he knew, he and Shion were the only ones within the premises who even had voices with which to scream. Though the wavering ghost-like forms in front of him could technically produce wails of their own, they were not the source; the scream he heard was definitely that of a young girl.

“Renya…” moaned Shion from within the cradle of his arm. Her breaths were coming in gasps.

He felt a pang of anxiety. Had he gone too far? Was he choking her? Her next words, however, brought his thoughts to a screeching halt.

“More…”

His arm went slack on reflex. Feeling like that wasn’t enough, he added a push to the motion, ensuring that the body hit the ground with an audible thump. As if on cue, the pale white figures that surrounded them gave one vigorous shake before vanishing like candle flames in a gust of wind. Silence returned to the garden. As he slowly turned in a circle and checked around him to make sure nothing else posed a threat, a voice came from below him. Shion, who he had just tossed onto the ground, was protesting her treatment.

“You know, that was definitely where you were supposed to look at my teary eyes, Renya, and feel your heart skip a beat.”

“Ah. Well, sorry my heart didn’t skip a beat, but those masochistic vibes of yours sure sent a chill down my spine.”

“Masochistic girls are adorable, aren’t they?!” she exclaimed as she latched onto him again.

“Okay, you need to shut up for a bit,” he complained, “and also fix that demented personality of yours.”

Renya effortlessly brushed aside her attack, sending her flopping onto the ground again.

“Hnngh… Well, anyway, moving on.” She slowly got up, dusted herself off, and looked at the house. “Someone’s in there, huh?”

“You heard it?”

He spoke with genuine surprise, which caused her to turn toward him with her hands at her hips. Her attitude suggested that she was upset to discover he held her in rather low regard.

“I sure did. It was a scream. Sounded like it was from a little girl… probably because you spooked her.”

“Hm. I can’t deny that the sight of me going crazy with a katana might be too stimulating for young children… but we didn’t see anyone else in that building, right?”

“You think a kid just wandered in?”

“Maybe, but we’ll be here all day if we start listing all the possibilities. We should probably just take another look inside…”

Renya sheathed his katana and was about to walk back to the building’s entrance when Shion called out to him from behind. When he turned around, he found her with her hands outstretched, desperately trying to reach out to him. She seemed distressed.

“What’s the matter?”

“After being thrown around so much, my head is spinning…”

He looked her over and discovered that her knees were indeed shaking. While she was putting on a calm front, she seemed to be having trouble keeping her eyes focused in one direction. He conceded that he might have gone a little too far this time. When he first heard that she couldn’t walk, he had considered just ditching her there. However, he decided that he’d feel guilty if he left her stranded and unable to move in a ghost-infested garden all by herself, especially when he was the cause of her disability.

“All right, fine. I’ll drag you in. Happy?”

Shion tripped where she stood.

Out of all the methods to transport a lady, she probably wasn’t expecting that one. With an effort of will, she laboriously stood back up on her trembling legs and pointed a finger at him.

“I demand to be carried like a princess!”

“I’ll see you when you can walk again, then.”

“Sorry, forget I said that! Don’t go! Don’t ditch me! Please don’t leave me here by myself! But can’t you carry me on your back? Or at least at your side like before? Please!” she cried, the look in her eyes a mute appeal of the claim that all girls dream of the princess carry.

He shrugged, then turned around and lowered himself before her.

“Here you go. Piggyback, then.”

“Oh, um, thanks…”

She meekly wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her body against his. With a grunt, he picked her up on his back and made his way to the house.

“Do you know where the voice came from?” he asked.

“Probably from the workshop. The window facing the garden there was open.”

He raised an eyebrow. To notice such a detail while being twirled through the air was no small feat. He re-adjusted his respect for her, figuring that even if she noticed by pure coincidence, it wouldn’t hurt to dial it back up a notch. Otherwise, he’d have to break the knob to turn it any lower.

They entered the workshop through the front hall. It remained brightly lit by his orbs. As he lowered Shion from his back and rested her against the wall, he noticed there was someone lying face down on the ground.

“The heck is this?”

It was a young girl with flaxen hair trimmed to shoulder-length. She wore a bicolored apron-like dress of white and black. To put it simply, there was a girl in a maid costume on the floor. What surprised him, however, was how short the girl was; she probably wasn’t more than a meter tall. He immediately dismissed the possibility that she might have wandered in here by accident. A normal girl might have done that, but this was no normal girl. He couldn’t even call her a child; while her stature was small enough, her arms and legs were much too thin while her head and the rest of her body were about as big as an adult woman’s. It was a peculiar sight; it looked as though a grown woman in a maid costume had been shrunk by a size or two. Her ears, long and thin and pointy-ended, were also decidedly unhuman. The word “elf” flashed in his mind. If this was what elves looked like in this world, though, then they must live in a place that would look like a kingdom of miniatures to him.

“Hey, Shion, are elves supposed to be midgets?”

“You don’t know what elves look like? They’re about the same size as us, except with super flat chests.”

To make sure, he flipped the girl over and — for the purposes of investigation — groped around her body. She did not wake up, though she might have stirred slightly. While the mounds of her chest were modest, they were undoubtedly present. He certainly didn’t think they deserved the adverb “super.”

“Hm, not exactly flat.”

“I’m pretty sure ‘elf’ was the wrong direction to take in the first place… In fact, I think that might be a Silkie.”

《Notification: Help Activated — Silkies are considered a type of fairy, or sometimes a type of ghost, that are bonded to homes. Though their appearance may vary, they often take on the shape of beautiful young girls and aid in house chores. Should they become displeased with the residents, they may employ illusory or telekinetic magecraft to drive the residents out of the home. Caution is advised. They have a strong tendency to preserve the state of the house to the best of their ability.》

“Huh. You know about them? I’m impressed,” he said as he skimmed the help message.

“I remember hearing about them from the books people read to me when I was little,” she answered without a blush. “They’re fairies who are good at housework, and if they like you, they’ll help you protect your home. If they don’t like you, they’ll throw things around, break things, and generally just be a huge pain for you.”

“Fairies, you say? And not ghosts?”

“Duh. You can’t touch ghosts, right?”

Fair point. He had just flipped the girl over, after all. Flipping requires touching. In other words, touchable meant fairies and not touchable meant ghosts. It was a method of categorization that left him scratching his head a little, but he supposed he’d have to accept it. Maybe that was simply how they classified things here.

“Why would a fairy be passed out in a place like this, then?”

“I didn’t even know fairies could pass out… but there’s nothing weird about it being here, right? This is a home, after all.”

To Renya, it seemed rather meaningless to be a beautiful young girl with a knack for house chores when she had to spend all her time in an abandoned house. Now was not the time to ponder such things, though. First, he needed to ask the fairy some questions. To do that — assuming they could even communicate in the first place — he had to wake her up. He put a hand on her delicate body and, as though he were handling a fragile glass sculpture, gave it the gentlest of shakes. His nervous mannerism drew a giggle from Shion, who was observing him from her position against the wall.

“…”

He tried a few more times. The girl’s eyelids twitched, and a small gap slowly appeared between them. He caught a glimpse of two jade orbs, crystal-pure. They peered back at him through the narrow opening. Then, she suddenly burst into a fit of panicked motion. Her eyes sprung open, and her upper body sprung up. Presumably, she would have also sprung away, but her legs seemed to have failed her, which left her dragging herself across the floor with her arms in a desperate attempt to distance herself from Renya.

It was an extremely uncomfortable sight that made him feel like he was partaking in something very wrong. So, he sat down on the floor cross-legged, undid his sword belt, and threw it to Shion. Once he saw Shion catch it, he turned to the fleeing girl and called out to her.

“Hey, look, I’m not holding anything dangerous anymore. Don’t be so scared. I don’t mean to harm you.”

The girl, perhaps exhausted from all that pulling, stopped crawling away and turned around.

“…Get out of here!” she shouted at him in a harsh tone.

Well. It looks like communication won’t be a problem. Good to know.

“Why do you want us out? If you’ve got a good reason, then we’ll certainly consider leaving.”

“Because this is my home!”

“Shion, let me confirm something. Does stuff like property rights and land ownership apply to fairies?”

“They’re fairies, Renya. Of course not.”

“No! This is my home! I was born here so it’s mine!”

“Okay, okay, take it easy. We’re not here to figure out whose home it is, much less hand you an eviction notice. In fact, I have no idea what’s going on here, so I’d really appreciate it if you could do some explaining for me, uh… You know, it’d also help if I knew your name,” said Renya, figuring that the modest approach of asking for an explanation and her name would do him well.

“Before you ask someone their name…”

“Oh, yeah, I should start by introducing myself, right? I’m Renya Kunugi. That’s Shion. We’re both adventurers. It’s a pleasure.”

The girl looked down, then in the softest of whispers, said,

“I don’t… have a name…”

With her eyes downcast, the girl began to tell her story. She explained that she had first become conscious in this house about three years ago.

“I was in the basement.”

“There’s a basement? In this house?”

“The workshop has a trapdoor.”

She had been born into darkness. The smell of dust and grime permeated the gloom surrounding her. Not a sliver of light could be seen. Being a fairy, however, she did not mind, so she simply walked up the stairs to the ground floor.

“When I got out, I was supposed to say hi to the people living here, but…”

“The place was already deserted, huh? Is it normal for Silkies to be born into empty houses?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know any other Silkies.”

At that point, the house was already in significant disrepair, and weeds were growing rampant throughout the garden. Faced with a house that was falling apart, she had wanted to do her Silkie duty and start fixing it up, but her fairy nature did not allow her to do so.

“Silkies like me are generally fairies who help out the residents. Or we might have to wait until the residents request for us to do something.”

“…And there were no residents in this house to make that request,” Renya supplied.

As a result, she had no choice but to devote herself to her other job as a Silkie: preserving the current state of the house. To that end, she had to try her best to prevent people from entering the premises. The presence of people, after all, represented a change to the house’s “abandoned” state. Normally, she should have been eagerly waiting for new residents to move in so that she can help them and fulfill their requests. However, the house had already been abandoned when she was born. That presented a contradiction. Her head knew it, but her body wouldn’t listen. It was a rare case in which a Silkie’s fairy nature ended up functioning like a curse.

She had to prevent intruders from approaching, but as a Silkie, she was poorly-equipped for combat. Fairies by nature had plenty of mana to work with, but they could only use very basic magecraft. It was likely that she would not last long in a head-on fight against humans. With such concerns in mind, she continued patrolling the house until one day, a real estate agent brought some clients to take a look around the house’s surroundings. As they talked, she overheard the ghost story about the merchant, and decided to make use of it.

Widely known to be tricksters, fairies had a knack for making people see or hear things, simple manipulation of objects from afar, and turning invisible. By employing these talents, she soon set the stage for rumors to run wild, and a haunted house — every bit as creepy as told in the story — was born. She figured that nobody would want to be near such a creepy house.

“And then a creep like Renya showed up.”

“Right, I’ll be having a word with you later, Shion.”

“A… A creep—”

“Hey! Damn it, fairy,” he complained at the small figure who started to slowly back away from him, “you of all people don’t get to look at me like you just saw a ghost. I mean, I’ll admit that I might have been a little too excited to hear that this place is haunted, but…”

Renya sighed and trailed off, his self-awareness catching up to him. The fairy also decided to sit back down, looking a little embarrassed. Apparently, her blatant revulsion had been reflexive. Now that everyone was being civil again, he took a moment to consider how to lead into his next topic. Then, he spoke.

“Anyway, the point is that I’m thinking of purchasing this property.”

His statement took the fairy by surprise and was met with a blank stare. He studied her for a second, trying to catch a glimpse of something — some flicker of emotion in her eyes, perhaps — that would hint to what she was thinking. Was that rejection he saw? Or approval? He couldn’t tell. Nevertheless, there were things that had to be said, so he continued in a patient, deliberate tone.

“Of course, you can refuse. If you’re adamant about not letting anyone touch this place and keeping it as an abandoned house, then I’ll certainly consider looking into a different property. I have one question though. I don’t know much about Silkies, but how long will you last like this? Can you just keep protecting an empty house?”

The fairy shook her head.

As I thought.

Judging from what Shion and the Help Function had said, he suspected that once bonded to a house, this kind of fairy maintained her existence through communication with the residents. The whole “driving residents out when she doesn’t like them” seemed a bit contradictory, but anyhow, he was pretty sure that interaction with people was a necessary element. Supposing he was right, if she were to keep guarding an abandoned house like this, she would grow weaker and weaker. Sooner or later, she would likely perish.

“If that’s the case, then I’d prefer to move in here, even if I had to force the issue…”

If her fairy instincts forced her to prioritize preserving the state of the house and she kept trying to drive them out, he could shoulder his way in and overpower her again like he did this time. Once he settled down here, he’d become a resident whom she could help. That might cause her to come around. This idea, however, was met with a shake of her head.

“You still want us out?”

“No… I tried once, and I lost. And you expressed your intent to live here, so the desire to preserve the house’s current state is gone.”

“So, that means all I have to do now is actually move in?”

“Mm-hm, but…”

She looked at Renya and hesitated. The gesture made him grimace on the inside, wondering what else was a problem.

“Will you…” she said timidly, “really come live here? In a creepy place like this?”

“I sure wouldn’t if it was up to me,” Shion blurted out before a glare from Renya caused her to shrink back. Meanwhile, the tiny victim of Shion’s remark looked to be on the verge of tears.

“Well, we have one more friend,” said Renya, trying to placate the distressed fairy, “and we still have to discuss it with her. Chances are, though, we’ll end up living here.”

“Really? I await your arrival, Master!”

The fairy burst into a radiant smile. Shion smirked for some reason. Renya, for his part, wasn’t quite sure what to think. With an awkward expression on his face, he patted his new Silkie friend on the head.

Afterwards, neither Renya nor Shion felt like sleeping, so they waited the night out and headed back to the inn at the crack of dawn. They explained the situation to Rona, who told them that as long as the two of them were happy with it, she was fine with whatever. With Rona’s disinterested but approving response in hand, they quickly made their way to the real estate office, whereupon they shocked the agent by showing up in perfectly sound condition, albeit wanting to sleep. Choosing to not mention the fairy, they simply announced that they didn’t see any ghosts and were going to buy the place. The man immediately glowed with delight, explaining that every client who had shown interest in that property so far had, without exception, ran into ghosts there. As a result, the property had become an unsellable defect. The man let out a sigh of relief and mentioned that Renya’s purchase was a weight off his shoulders.

Renya did not let the man’s remark go unnoticed. He pounced on the opportunity, reminding the agent that the proverbial lifting of weights should be a mutual endeavor, and began to haggle. Shion looked on with mild awe, wondering how he still had the energy after an all-nighter. An intense period of verbal dueling followed. Eventually, the agent caved and agreed to Renya’s proposal: a one-time down payment followed by periodic installments to be paid back whenever he could, whenever he wished — no badgering.

Renya retrieved the money from his inventory, gave it to the agent, signed a contract, and placed the contract in his inventory. Then he took the keys to the house and dashed back to the inn with a tired Shion behind him. On the way back, her sleepiness got the better of her and he ended up giving her a second piggyback ride. Upon returning to the inn, he stopped only to announce the conclusion of the purchase before departing again for the house, this time with Rona at his side as well. Along the way, Rona questioned his hasty decision-making, to which he answered that there was a reason for his rush to get things done.

He wasn’t sure if the same was true of fairies in this world, but the term “fairy” had always evoked a sense of fickleness for him. While the Silkie had been willing to acknowledge him as “Master,” he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he took too long, she’d decide to start their relationship over from the very beginning. As soon as he arrived at their destination, he introduced the fairy to Rona and officially declared that they were moving in.

“All right. First order of business, get rid of all this old junk and buy new furniture. Are you up for it?”

“Mm-hm! Leave it to me!”

It turned out that his fears were unfounded. The cheery grin on the Silkie’s face signaled to him that he could declare this part of his mission complete. He appreciated the feeling of having a load taken off his shoulders. All that remained was the load on his back, which was happily snoozing away…

What came next was a string of events during which Rona and the fairy displayed their competence while Renya and Shion gaped from the sidelines. First, Rona produced a retinue of merchants and workers seemingly out of thin air. They quickly emptied the house of old articles, sold some, scrapped the rest, and took new orders. A storm of activity engulfed Renya. As detailed discussions of the whats and wheres of interior decor took place, he stood in the middle of it all, bewildered and lost. By the time he came to, new furniture was already lining his spacious new quarters, their prices negotiated and payment method finalized. Since he was strapped for cash, Rona dug into her own savings to foot the bill for the time being.

“I’m moving in as well, after all, and if I’m going to live here, then I’d prefer to live comfortably… while racking up some favors along the way,” she said before adding in a whisper, “You owe me one now.”

In that instant, Renya felt a chill like nothing before.

The fairy also pulled far more than her fair share of weight in their extensive remodeling project. Originally, Renya had been worried about her being seen by the merchants and workers moving in and out of the house. However, as soon as it had been decided that the three of them were living here, the fairy’s appearance changed; she now looked like a normal little girl, ten years old or so, who was dressed in a maid uniform. Apparently, she used to have the stature of humans with the looks to match, but the long years she had spent living in an abandoned house drained her strength and caused her to shrink.

“Doesn’t that mean you were in a pretty dangerous spot, then?”

“Mm-hm. But I had yucky food. I ate it and it kept me going.”

He raised a curious eyebrow. What did fairies eat?

“For the most part, food for us fairies is mana. We bond to homes so we can slurp up the mana that leaks out naturally from the residents.”

“…I think I know where this is going, and I’m not thrilled to hear it. What exactly was that yucky food you mentioned?”

“The malicious ghost of the person who was apparently put to death in the garden.”

Shion’s face turned pale at her words. Rona smiled weakly.

According to the fairy, when she’d first woken up, she discovered the merchant’s soul in a corner of the house, halfway through the process of materializing as an evil spirit. Despite its allegedly awful quality, it was nevertheless a handsome hunk of mana, so she quickly got her hands on it. Thus was the ghostly merchant subject to death by slow and systematic mastication, ultimately perishing a second time.

“I guess you might call that karma?”

“Whatever. I don’t care enough about dead serial killers to pray for their souls,” said an apathetic Rona. “Maybe it should be glad it got eaten. It can’t go to Hell if it no longer exists, after all.” It seemed a questionable statement coming from one of the priesthood, but Renya chose to not pursue the topic further.

The newly-invigorated fairy proceeded to summon a mighty gale that swept through the house and blew all the dust and trash out into the garden. Then, at her command, blades of wind sliced through the rampant weeds and branches outside to trim them down.

As for Shion and Renya, their contributions to the effort consisted of standing, gaping, and marveling at the proficiency of their comrades.

At the end of it all, a small mountain of garbage had accumulated in the yard. Shion walked over and set it aflame. In the meantime, Renya was digging a hole in a corner of the garden. Once the great garbage bonfire sputtered and died, they swept the pile of ash into the hole, covered it with earth, and wrapped up. Total time taken: a mere two days, counting from Renya’s initial decision to make the purchase.

Their job finished, the three adventurers dragged their tired bodies into the living room down and laid down on their new leather sofas. Within seconds, they were fast asleep. Eventually, their miniature maid appeared as well, having diligently prepared tea and dessert for the slumbering residents. She approached Renya.

“Master! Your work isn’t done yet!”

“Wha… What’s not done?” he asked as he was shaken awaken by the shoulder.

“My name! Give me a name, please! I don’t want to be ‘fairy’ all the time!”

“A name…”

A few names surfaced in his sleep-addled mind. He immediately dismissed them. “Coco” or “Daisy” definitely weren’t going to do; she wasn’t a pet. Through an effort of will, he managed to extract from his sluggish thoughts a certain name. When he posed it to the fairy, she approved it with a gleeful smile.

Thus did Renya gain a house, a workshop, a garden, and the companionship of a home-protecting, chore-doing fairy named Frau Verde.